Shirish R. Godbole

OTR/CHT

Shirish is the “ORIGINAL PAIR OF ABLE HANDS” since 1994, when AHR PC was established by him in Old Bridge Township, with the help of his beloved wife Minette. Shirish is a Licensed Occupational Therapist and a Certified Hand Therapist. His specialization in Hand Therapy (CHT), was achieved in 1995, when the Hand Therapy was still in its infancy.

Due to hard work ethics, continuation of studies and ongoing extensive experience in all kinds of hand injury and impairments especially traumatic hand injuries, Shirish and AHR PC started gaining traction and trust of all Hand Surgeons in the area. Shirish always worked in close contact with the Hand Surgeons, whether Orthopedic or Plastic, at local and national level, to ensure excellent coordination of care and excellent results for his patients. He is often credited for totally changing the outcomes of hand trauma patient in his office, by treating them successfully and achieving the best possible results.

However, due to due to excessive hard work and repetitive stress and strain over the past 25 years, he has developed serious osteo-arthritis of his hands as well as his neck. He is now in the process of recovery and works only when necessary. He is now a supervising Hand therapist and is always available to all the patients for any advice at AHR PC all the time without any reservations, whenever he is in the office.

Minette C. Godbole

OTR/CHT

Minette became a part of this ‘ultimate husband and wife team’ at Able Hands Rehabilitation PC in 2002, by opening her own Freehold office. She achieved specialization and internationally recognized certification in Hand Therapy by meeting all the strenuous requirements to become a CHT (Certified Hand Therapist) in 1997. She also has extensive experience with all kind of hand injury and/or impairments, especially traumatic hand injuries.

Minette specializes in creating unique, custom and creative static and dynamic splints (Orthotics) for hand injury patients to regain range of motion, for positioning or protection purposes, which is well liked by patients as well as hand surgeons. Minette is also very capable in developing a bond of trust with the patients, which is so important in hand rehabilitation

Lauren Conheeney

OTR/CHT

Lauren is a Licensed Occupational Therapist and Certified Hand Therapist who joined Able Hands Rehab in September of 2020. She enjoys all aspects of hand therapy including fabricating custom static and dynamic splints, manual therapy treatments, and specialties in shoulder rehabilitation. She takes a holistic and functional approach to treatment and feels most passionate about building close relationships with her patients that allow her to curate treatment programs to help them achieve their goals and return to their full function.

Lauren graduated with a Masters in Occupational Therapy from Columbia University in 2012. She began her career at Mount Sinai Hospital where a rotation to the outpatient clinic allowed her to find her passion for orthopedics and hand therapy. After four years of mentorship, she achieved her CHT certification in 2018. She continued her career by assisting in the growth of the OT department at a private practice group where she worked at locations in Chelsea and Midtown. She was thrilled to accept a position at Able Hands Rehab when she made the decision to move to NJ with her fiancé and begin their life together in Belmar.

Gabrielle Buchholz, MS

OTR/L, CHT

Gabrielle is a Licensed Occupational Therapist and Associate Hand Therapist who joined Able Hands Rehab in 2018. She has always had a passion to pursue a specialization in hand therapy and achieved CHT qualification in 2019. Gabrielle is experienced in building strong relationships with her patients and personalizing their treatments in order to return them to their highest functional level.

Prior to joining Able Hands, Gabrielle was an Occupational Therapist at Bryn Mawr Rehab, which is ranked as one of the top hospitals in the Greater Philadelphia region. She graduated with a Masters in Occupational Therapy from Jefferson University in 2015.

We as human beings, interact with our environment through our hands and make things happen in our professional and personal life. Hands perform millions of functions for us every day without us even thinking about it!

It is exactly the reason why hands are so intricate and complicated.

Compromising the hand functions, due to injury or impairment, can reduce our interaction with the world significantly, affecting our psycho-social life. Loss of hand functions is a devastating blow to any human being and need to be taken seriously.

Certified Hand Therapist’s know how to take care of wounded and disabled hands in a very specialized and methodical way. The goal is to make hands better in function as well as in appearance.

CHT’s are always trusted and preferred by all Specialist Hand Surgeons (Plastic or Orthopedic), to take care of their post-surgical and post trauma hand patients. This trust develops due to our ability to give them excellent results and making their patients happy for regaining as much hand functions as possible.

Certified Hand Therapist’s know how to take care of wounded and disabled hands due to possession of extensive knowledge and experience in treating hand injuries-impairments. They are very good in timely and correct interventions with different ways and means, which is critical in having a very good prognosis.

They know many different treatment protocols for specific conditions such as forearm-wrist and finger fractures, tendon injuries which are very common and nerve injuries as well as crush injuries which usually involve all the structures. CHT’s know the anatomy and physiology of healing hands very well.

They are aware of the psycho-social effects of hand injuries and are very good in establishing a rapport with the patient. That bond of trust they develop with the patient and family is the most important part in successful hand rehabilitation.

CHT’s also have the unique ability to effectively use all modalities such as hot packs, ultrasound, lectrical stimulation, TEN’s, NME’s. They also have expertise needed to fabricate multiple custom static and dynamic splints.

Splinting and Orthotics for wrist-fingers and thumb for protection of healing structures or to regain or to retain range of motion is critical for hand Therapy. CHTs know all the diagnoses, conditions and the clinical presentations. They will either make their own educated decision to treat the problem in a certain way or they will communicate with the referring specialist Hand Surgeon and discuss about the course of intervention, if needed!

This close communication and coordination between the hand therapist and a Hand surgeon is essential to formulate and execute a successful treatment plan to regain all hand functions.

Read more about Certified Hand Therapists (CHTs) or our hands-   Ask a question to a hand therapist.