Buffalo Occupational Therapy

Buffalo Occupational Therapy Specialized Memory Care, Resources, and Consultation services in Buffalo, NY. Advanced training in memory loss and movement disorders.

Host to Brainwaves of America and BOT Portal Occupational Therapy Resources.

We will be at the Amherst Senior Center this Saturday for the Community Wellness Event! Buffalo Occupational Therapy has...
07/28/2026

We will be at the Amherst Senior Center this Saturday for the Community Wellness Event!

Buffalo Occupational Therapy has been promoting brain health and wellness since 2018, serving the community by conducting more than 200 brain and function baseline screens every year!

If you are 50 years or over and haven't yet had a Brain Wellness Baseline visit with The Brain Project and had a one-on-one conversation of how to take care of your memory and thinking skills throughout your lifespan, now is a great time to get it scheduled!

A baseline visit is a great way to get plugged in with a local provider whose only job is to make sure your brain is as supported as it can be throughout your life, so that you do not need to worry about it!

Come to our table and say hi! Would love to connect.

https://www.buffalooccupationaltherapy.com/brain-project/

This blog article is written by my colleague (Adrianna M. Brown, MS, OTR/L) and I with a goal of sharing our experience ...
07/07/2026

This blog article is written by my colleague (Adrianna M. Brown, MS, OTR/L) and I with a goal of sharing our experience in outpatient cognitive remedial therapy.

How would we define cognitive remedial therapy in Occupational Therapy [with the foundation of activity analysis]?

In outpatient occupational therapy, cognitive remedial therapy is a skilled, neuroscience-informed rehabilitation approach that targets the cognitive systems underlying functional performance. It is not limited to compensation, adaptation, or teaching a person to “work around” impairment. While compensatory strategies remain important, cognitive remedial therapy also uses the principles of neuroplasticity, motor learning, attention, memory, executive function, and environmental demand to guide how intervention is designed, graded, and progressed.

This means treatment begins with the brain, but it does not stay abstract. The clinician identifies which cognitive processes are breaking down during meaningful activity, such as attention shifting, working memory, sequencing, spatial orientation, error monitoring, inhibition, or cognitive flexibility. Activity analysis is then used to translate those brain-based impairments into observable task demands. The occupation becomes the clinical arena where cognitive systems are challenged, supported, strengthened, and reorganized.

🧠💡 Movement without thinking isn’t enough. Thinking without movement isn’t enough either.The real magic happens when we ...
06/24/2026

🧠💡 Movement without thinking isn’t enough. Thinking without movement isn’t enough either.

The real magic happens when we challenge the brain to do both at the same time.

Every time we combine a motor task with a cognitive task, we’re asking the brain to coordinate attention, executive function, working memory, motor planning, balance, and decision-making—all at once. That’s much closer to how we function in everyday life.

Instead of practicing skills in isolation, we can design interventions that reflect the real cognitive demands of walking through a grocery store, carrying on a conversation, navigating a crowded environment, or preparing a meal.

As rehabilitation professionals, we don’t just prescribe activities—we analyze them. Understanding why a dual-task works is what transforms a good intervention into an intentional one.

📚 If you want weekly neuroscience-backed intervention ideas, clinical reasoning tips, and practical ways to connect brain function to everyday occupation, join the FREE Functional Cognition Lab Newsletter.

📩 Comment “NEWSLETTER” below, and I’ll send you the link!

🧠 Grow your confidence.
🚶 Strengthen your clinical reasoning.
🧩 Connect neuroscience to meaningful rehabilitation.

🧠✨ FUNCTIONAL COGNITION IS WHERE THINKING MEETS DOING.We often talk about memory, attention, executive function, balance...
06/22/2026

🧠✨ FUNCTIONAL COGNITION IS WHERE THINKING MEETS DOING.

We often talk about memory, attention, executive function, balance, strength, and motor control as separate systems.

Real life doesn’t work that way.

Getting dressed, preparing a meal, managing medications, grocery shopping, driving, returning to work, or planning a family event all require the brain to coordinate multiple systems simultaneously.

🔹 Executive function to plan, organize, and adapt
🔹 Attention to stay focused and resist distractions
🔹 Memory to hold information long enough to use it
🔹 Motor control to carry out the action
🔹 Self-monitoring to recognize and correct errors

Functional cognition is the integration of these systems during everyday occupation.

This is why a person can perform well on isolated cognitive tasks in a clinic but still struggle when those same skills must be applied in the complexity of real life.

💡 As rehabilitation professionals, our goal is not simply to improve cognitive test scores.

Our goal is to improve how cognition supports participation in meaningful occupations.

Because at the end of the day, cognition is only valuable if it helps someone do what matters most to them.

🧠 Occupational Therapy
🧠 Physical Therapy
🧠 Speech-Language Pathology
🧠 Neurorehabilitation

Picture occupational therapy in 1970. Not the profession — the room. A small hospital space with metal filing cabinets, ...
06/18/2026

Picture occupational therapy in 1970. Not the profession — the room. A small hospital space with metal filing cabinets, paper charts, and a therapist in a white uniform. No electronic medical record. No OTPF. No ADA, no IDEA, no Section 504. No Medicare recognition as we know it. No MOHO, no PEO, no occupational science. No widespread licensure. No standardized language. Nothing that modern OT practitioners would recognize as normal.

If you asked that therapist what occupational therapy would look like fifty years later, she probably would not have recognized half of it.…

Listen to the latest Outspoken OT Podcast episode!

INTRODUCING the newly revamped……OT Scope & Structure™: A 3-part framework intensive for confidence and authority in your...
06/18/2026

INTRODUCING the newly revamped……OT Scope & Structure™: A 3-part framework intensive for confidence and authority in your clinical practice.

You were trained to use the OTPF. But were you ever taught how to use it as a clinical reasoning tool? Were you taught how to use it in a way that carries with it confidence to be a voice in the room AND clinical authority?

This series is Designed to help you stop second-guessing your interventions and start practicing with structural confidence and finally step into your full scope of practice.

Module 1: Scope — Structural Confidence

Module 2: Domain & Process — Analytical Authority

Module 3: Living the Cornerstones — Clinical Authority

AOTA Approved | 1.5 PDUs, .2 CEUs | Course Approval Code: 4831

This course is for the OT practitioner or student clinician heading to fieldwork who knows their craft but wants the language, structure, and confidence to defend it — in documentation, on the rehab team, and in every session.

If you want the link, comment “OT Scope” and you will be sent a limited time 65% OFF link for the course!!

🔥🔥Comment “OT Scope” for the 65% off Flash Introductory rate!

When people hear the term “executive function,” they often think of attention, organization, or problem-solving.But exec...
06/09/2026

When people hear the term “executive function,” they often think of attention, organization, or problem-solving.

But executive functions are much more than that.

They are the brain systems that allow us to regulate behavior, hold information in mind, adapt when things change, plan actions, and get started in the first place.

When these systems break down, the results show up in everyday life:

• Interrupting before thinking
• Forgetting what you were doing halfway through a task
• Getting stuck when plans change
• Knowing what to do but not being able to start
• Struggling to organize simple daily activities

The challenge is that many of these problems look similar on the surface.

A patient who cannot start a task may not have a motivation problem.

A patient who gets overwhelmed may not have an anxiety problem.

A patient who repeats the same mistake may not have a learning problem.

Different executive functions fail differently.

And effective treatment depends on knowing which system is actually breaking down.

Over five issues of the Functional Cognition Lab Newsletter, we break down the five major executive functions we see most often in clinical practice:

🚫 Inhibition
🧠 Working Memory
🔄 Cognitive Flexibility
📋 Planning & Sequencing
▶️ Initiation

For each one, we explore:

• What it looks like in real patients
• Why it happens
• How to identify it clinically
• Practical treatment strategies you can use immediately

Because better intervention starts with understanding the system underneath the behavior.

Which executive function do you see causing the most problems in your caseload?

Most people think cognition looks like memory tests, word lists, and paper-and-pencil scores.But that is not usually wha...
06/08/2026

Most people think cognition looks like memory tests, word lists, and paper-and-pencil scores.

But that is not usually what walks through your clinic door.

Instead, it looks like:

• The person who scores well but still cannot manage daily life.
• The person whose memory scores are poor but functions surprisingly well.
• The patient who becomes overwhelmed by everyday demands.
• The individual who gets lost in familiar places.
• The person who starts tasks but never finishes them.
• The patient who moves well until thinking is added to the task.
• The person whose balance is fine until something changes.

These are not random problems.

They are patterns.

And those patterns often tell you more about real-world function than a single cognitive score ever will.

Functional cognition asks a different question:

Not “How did they perform on the test?”

But “How does cognition affect what they actually do every day?”

Because patients do not live on assessments.

They live at home, in the community, at work, in conversations, in kitchens, in grocery stores, and in the thousands of decisions that make up daily life.

Which scenario do you see most often in your practice?

Cognitive flexibility isn’t one thing...it’s two. And they breakdown differently in every day function.The patient who s...
06/02/2026

Cognitive flexibility isn’t one thing...it’s two.

And they breakdown differently in every day function.

The patient who shuts down when the caregiver is late, the door is locked, or the routine changes isn’t being difficult...

Their brain either isn’t generating that alternatives exist, or it isn’t perceiving the situation as something it can manage.

Both look like the same shutdown. Both need a different intervention.

This edition of the Functional Cognition Lab breaks down both components, shows you how to assess which one is driving your patient’s presentation before you start treatment, and gives you a complete two-phase protocol using a standard deck of cards.

Full protocol, grading guide, and documentation language for Functional Cognition Lab members!

Type “brain” in the comments for the link to the full post!

Address

1404 Sweet Home Road, Ste 11
Amherst, NY
14228

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 9pm
Tuesday 9am - 6pm
Wednesday 9am - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 6pm
Friday 9am - 6pm

Telephone

+17162353013

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Buffalo Occupational Therapy posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Buffalo Occupational Therapy:

Shortcuts

Share

Category