Rising Star: Kately Allen at Slate Valley
For National Rehabilitation Awareness Week this year (Sept 18–24), Slate Valley Center in Granville is recognizing Sigma Rehab Occupation Therapist Kately Allen, who is highly well-loved by the residents and her fellow colleagues at the 88-bed skilled nursing facility. Although she’s only been at the facility since July of this year and is being called a rising star, Ms. Allen is no stranger to the 88-bed skilled nursing facility, as she was a student there in 2022.
"My job may look like simple therapy, but what is missed is the endless work we do together to maximize independence and achieve their best quality of life," says Allen profoundly. "It’s not always about the big milestones, but reclaiming the thousands of small things most of us take for granted."
Hardly simple. The three most popular disciplines in rehabilitation are physical therapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), and speech therapy (ST), and in any of those therapies, therapists have the daunting task every day of getting people who were previously hospitalized due to perhaps a bad fall, a stroke, or a heart attack, to hopefully get them back on their feet in order to return home.
Upon her graduation in May 2023, she wanted to return as a full-time OT. Ms. Allen made such an impression on the staff and residents that they frequently asked for her after she left. She worked very hard, passed her boards right after graduation, and returned as a full-time OT. Ms. Allen has shown such initiative in just a few short months, willing to learn how to grow as a clinician and how to best grow the OT department at Slate Valley Center.
As seen all on WTEN, Granville Sentinel, Granville, NY, and WRGB CBS 6 News, Albany
Care. Support. Positive Outcomes. Centers Health Care.
Centers Health Care provides rehabilitation, skilled nursing and long-term care for people with a wide range of needs. Whether someone is recovering from surgery, managing an illness or simply needs more support than can be provided at home, our staff is there to help.
The goal is not exactly the same for everyone. It may be returning home, becoming stronger, staying independent or simply feeling better and more comfortable from one day to the next. There will be progress, setbacks and difficult days along the way. Our job is to be there through all of it, and to help each patient or resident get as far as he or she can.
Sometimes that progress comes in large steps. More often, it comes in small ones. Either way, every step matters.
Our Steps to Home series follows patients through rehabilitation and the journey from hospital to home:
