Touro University Nevada- School of Occupational Therapy

Our first year students completing their anatomy gloves in Dr. Rider’s class!

Class of 2024 have been wrapping up their capstone experiences and presenting their projects to their community partner sites. Congratulations on all your accomplishments!

Congratulations to Dr. Rider on being recognized by the Nevada Occupational Therapy Association for the Research Achievement Award. We are proud of his accomplishments!

Last night several of our students had the honor of sharing their fieldwork and capstone experiences working with older adults and the dementia population highlighting the value of OT! Special thanks to our community partners Silverado Red Rock Memory Care Community and OLLI at UNLV and Touro Alum Karmella Bognot

This weekend OT students had the opportunity to volunteer at the Touch-A-Truck event sponsored by our community partner Family 2 Family connection.

Last night we recognized the Class of 2026 inductees to Pi Theta Epsilon- the honor society for occupational therapy students. The mission of PTE is to advance research and scholarship within the profession. Congratulations to Shantelle, Araceli, Jessica, Shelby, Rana, Ciera, Llesenia, Christina, and Caitlyn!

The Touro University Nevada School of Occupational Therapy​ would like to announce an exciting scholarship opportunity to attend the 2024 AOTA Inspire conference. This conference will be held onsite in Orlando, Florida, from March 21 to 23, 2024. Scholarship winners will receive reimbursement for the full registration to the world's largest gathering of OT practitioners.

If you are a TUN SOT alumni or have served as a Fieldwork Educator for one of our students and are interested in attending the AOTA Inspire conference, please click on the application link below and answer a few simple questions.

https://tun.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cUXakkPDDbAJGZM

Our OTD students are scholars! Current students Kaitlyn Jensen OTD 2024 and Tara Roland OTD 2025 recently had a peer reviewed article published under the guidance of Dr. Rider. See their work here!

Jensen, K., Roland, T., & Rider, J. (2023). The meaning of roles and routines for families experiencing homelessness in the COVID-19 pandemic. Occupational Therapy in Mental Health, 1-25.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0164212X.2023.2283506

Congratulations to recent graduate Kazandra Lopez Hernandez on her recent publication resulting from her capstone project. Her mentor for the project and the article was Dr. Rider. We are proud of you! Check out the article here
Hernandez, K. L.& Rider, J. V. (2023). Empowering patients, enriching
outcomes: An integrative and occupational approach to addressing chronic pain in primary care. OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine, 8(4), 1-18.
doi:10.21926/obm.icm.2304053

2nd year student Kaila Patterson and Dr. Rider recently had an article published in Rehab Management.
Check out the link to read it!

Assessing Cognitive Abilities for Power Mobility Use How to evaluate individuals who may be overlooked when it comes to power mobility device evaluations due to cognitive impairments.

More posters from our systematic review night!

Last night out second year students completed their systematic review course by presenting their critically appraised topics to the community. Great job OT scholars!

Thank you to our OT students and UNLV PT students who were able to screen and educate ~50 older adults on fall prevention as part of the National Fall Prevention Awareness Week

Attention alumni- job opportunity

Join our dynamic program! OTCAS is open now.

Last week, students in our advanced clinical reasoning for child-based practice elective learned and practiced pediatric taping techniques.

Look at our feature on the AOTA page 😍

Rock climbing has become a popular leisure occupation for OTD students at Touro University Nevada. Learn how OTPs can include rock climbing in client interventions to promote physical, mental, and social well-being, as well as address specific performance skills: https://ow.ly/wAxN50P9U8X

Congratulations to Dr. Valdes and Dr. Martin who were both promoted to professor! They were evaluated by a committee of their peers and demonstrated excellence in the areas of teaching, scholarship and service.

We are celebrating with Class of 2022 Alumna Darkhishan Ali who had the results of her capstone project published in a peer-reviewed journal last month. She had the direct mentorship of Dr. Rider throughout the process.
To read the article:

Darkhishan, A., & Rider, J. (2023). Participation in quad rugby after spinal cord injury: A qualitative study. OTJR: Occupational Therapy Journal of Research, 1-9.
https://doi.org/10.1177/15394492231182063

Check out this month’s OT Practice magazine. Recent graduate, Nicholas Stevens and Dr. Rider’s article is featured in the cover!

Climbing to new heights: The therapeutic medium of rock climbing | AOTA Rock climbing can promote physical, mental, and social well-being and provide many biopsychosocial benefits, as well as address specific performance skills.

Welcome to the class of 2026! They started the program off strong by painting occupations murals.

Dr. Klabunde will be specializing in pediatric occupational therapy. Congratulations!

We think Dr. Sandoval has a nice ring to it! 🎉

Didactics ✅
White Coat ✅
Fieldwork ✅
Capstone ✅
All that’s left is graduation!

Next stop for the class of 2023 is Pinning and Graduation 🎉

We had a great turn out at capstone night. Thanks to all of our community practitioners, mentors, friends and family who support our students.

More capstone presentations!

Congrats to the class of 2023 who completed their final capstone presentations last night! We are proud of your accomplishments!

Our recent graduate Samantha and Dr. Rider were featured by Dignity Health.

Bravo to our very own Samantha Fenner, OTD, OTR/L and Johnny Rider, PhD, OTR/L, MSCS who were recently featured in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation for their article Mindfulness and Multiple Sclerosis: A Patient Guide.

The article offers practical patient-facing education about mindfulness for our patients living with multiple sclerosis.

Samantha and Johnny are Dignity Health Physical Therapy team members at our Henderson Adult Neurologic Rehabilitation located at 2850 W. Horizon Ridge Parkway, Suite 320.

Discover the Dignity difference at Horizon Ridge or any our 20 centers throughout the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Contact us at 877-200-9777 or go to https://bit.ly/3ZKkRZZ.



Read the article here: https://bit.ly/3qvT2sq

OT and PT students were at a Wellness Fair this past Sunday to provide screenings for BP, fall risk, frailty and aerobic capacity