April O’Connell, OTR/L, CHT, ACSM is an occupational therapist at Cedars Sinai
Hospital in Beverly Hills, CA. She works with a variety of sports teams including the
NFL, MLB and NBA and recently spoke at ASHT and AAHT on Rehabilitation of the
Overhead Athlete. She is one of the main contributors to the fellowship program
for hand and upper extremity rehabilitation as well as the co-director for Cedars
Sinai Hand Symposium. April got her start as the Clinical Specialist in the Hand and
Upper Extremity Therapy Department at NYU Langone Health. She has lectured to
orthopedic surgeons and therapists nationally and internationally in current
concepts of orthopedic rehabilitation of the upper extremity. Some of her most
recent lectures include being a guest speaker for Dr. Radio on Sirius Satellite on
topics for rehabilitation of the hand and upper extremity as well as injuries to the
overhead athlete. In addition, she has presented on Flexor Tendon Repair
Advancement at AAOS in 2015 and was later asked to speak at ASSH national
conference in 2016 and ASHT in 2017. She recently presented her latest research at
ASHT National Conference on flexor tendon rehabilitation in 2019. April is a
founding member of the NYU Langone Golf and Pitching Labs and was the head
hand therapist for the first successful bilateral hand and face allotransplantation.
She earned her Occupational Therapy degree at Boston University, is a Certified
Hand Therapist and is certified by the American Council of Sports Medicine (ACSM)
as a Clinical Exercise Specialist.
There are no financial or non-financial disclosures to report.