Julie Jones Corbett is an Occupational Therapist who entered the field in 1980 upon graduating from Columbia University with an MS in Occupational Therapy.  Hired by the University of Vermont Medical Center, Julie was asked to create a hand therapy service.   After accomplishing this in Burlington, Vermont, Julie developed OT/Hand Therapy services for St. Luke’s Hospital, Lenox Hill Hospital and the Miller’s Institute for Performing Arts of Roosevelt Hospital all in New York City.  And continued her work for 42 years. She became a Charter Active Member of the American Society of Hand Therapists in 1990 and served for 2 years on the Education Committee providing educational video reviews. Julie has been a Certified Hand Therapist since 1991.  
 

At Miller’s Institute for Performing Arts, with its unique team of musicians and medical professionals, Julie collaboratively addressed repetitive stress injuries among artists.  Close study enabled Julie and first author, Katy Keller, PT, to publish their scientific/clinical article, ‘Repetitive Strain Injury in Computer Keyboard Users: Pathomechanics and Treatment Principles in Individual and Group Intervention’ in the Journal of Hand Therapy (JHT Jan-Mar 1998, pg 9-26). 

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From 1992 - 2005, Julie established her private practice, Hudson River Hand Rehabilitation.  During her early professional years she was also teaching at Columbia University, Mercy College and Orange Regional Community College.  Since 2006, Julie has practiced OT as an independent contractor for therapist-owned practices in New York and Connecticut.

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Working closely with institutional audits, Medicare audits and billing regulations at Hudson River Hand Therapy, Julie became aware of the importance of objective data documentation to justify continuation of skilled OT care. As an independent contractor, she also observed that hand therapists use a variety of reliable and valid dexterity tests but had no standard test for evaluating the in-hand manipulation skill of translation from palm to finger-tips.  Many hand therapists use coins for manipulation from palm to finger-tip and placement into a single bank slot. In the development of the Corbett Targeted Coin Test Julie has combined the in-hand manipulation of coins with a board of multiple slots requiring wrist movement into an easily documented, timed prehensile test thereby filling a gap in the Hand Therapist’s armamentarium.

In 2017, Julie collected data on a small population of right-handed 20-year-old men and women as well as data on a variety of hand-injured patients with the performance in a test-retest model of a targeted coin placement test. An abstract and poster presentation was prepared for the 40th Annual ASHT conference for further consideration by colleagues. Julie was awarded Best Poster by ASHT for her work. Since then OTD candidates have researched and published the results on their collection of norms for the Corbett Targeted Coin Test contributing to its reliability and validity.

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Most recently Julie returned to the Hudson River Valley, where she and her husband raised 3 children, and developed the hand therapy service for a large medical group during the pandemic.  

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Julie finds it stimulating to confer with fellow clinicians as she presents on the topic:  Evaluating In-hand Manipulation; Evidence Lost in Translation at various professional conferences such as:  the Canadian Hand Therapy Association, APTA CSM Conference and annual AOTA Conference.   Julie looks forward to opportunities to discuss the clinical impact of how Corbett Targeted Coin Test fills the gap in evidence-based assessment of dexterity recovery at conferences and in clinical in-services.   She is enthusiastic about the role of research-clinician and its possibilities to impact healthcare policy