Nettie Capasso is an inpatient occupational therapy supervisor at Rusk Rehabilitation, NYU Langone Medical Center. She has presented at national and international conferences including the American Occupational Therapy Association, the International Seating Symposium, and the Rehabilitation and the Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America. She was a co-investigator for the Impact of Stroke prevention Education in Changing Stroke Risk Behaviors research study at Rusk from 2005-2009. Her publications include Optimizing motor planning and performance for individuals with neurological disorders, in the 7th edition of the textbook, Occupational Therapy for Physical Dysfunction. She is certified in both the Neuro-Integrative Functional Rehabilitation And Habilitation treatment, and the A-ONE assessment of cognitive/perceptual impairment in adults with brain injury. Holder of a Master’s degree in Occupational Therapy from New York University, her Bachelor’s degree in Clinical Nutrition is from Hunter College, City University of New York. In this interview, she discusses an update on an earlier study called the Development and Preliminary Reliability of the Functional Upper Extremity Levels (FUEL) that is useful in treating stroke patients regarding the tool's reliability and validity, educational approaches to change stroke risk behaviors, the role of neurofeedback therapy for stroke/brain injury patients, the role of occupational therapy in addressing needs of stroke patients who want to continue being employed, and how to prioritize other needs of stroke patients, such as self-care and wanting to fulfill social roles with family members.
