Satterberg's therapies restore health to afflicted patients

PHOTO | Contributed Ruth Satterberg divides her time between helping cancer survivors resume their normal lives and restoring functionality to patients who have suffered severe injuries to their hands and limbs. (Above) Satterberg created a prosthetic thumb to help a patient regain the use of his right hand, after he lost a thumb and crushed his fingers in a work accident.

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By David Medina

Upon meeting Ruth Satterberg for the first time, you would never suspect that she is a key figure in the success of the Hartford HealthCare Rehabilitation Network at the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain.

“She tends to be the one person in the department who spearheads all of the charity work and the celebrations for her co-workers,” says her supervisor Robert Stair, the regional director for the network. “For all of the great things that she does . . . she doesn't see herself as more special than anyone else, and it's very apparent to everyone who comes in contact with her.”

As the hospital's occupational therapist since 2006, Satterberg divides her time between helping countless cancer survivors resume their normal lives and restoring functionality to non-cancer patients who have suffered severe injuries to their hands and limbs. She is one of about 30 individuals in Connecticut certified in lymphedema therapy, a procedure in which the therapist applies special massage techniques to move body fluid into working lymph nodes.

“More cancer patients are surviving now and, as a result, they need more therapy,” she says.

Hospital officials say Satterberg's modest demeanor, coupled with her special skills and total dedication to improving the lives of her patients, have also helped to expand the number of rehabilitation referrals at the hospital.

“I find that putting her in front of doctors is much more effective than my trying to describe how great she is,” says Britta Raczkowski, the account manager who promotes the services of the network. “She recently made a presentation at a system-wide cancer meeting and, after 10 minutes, they all wanted to know how to get their patients into her therapy. It was electric in the room.”

One of Satterberg's most challenging and rewarding professional experiences occurred earlier this year when she was confronted with the task of helping a man regain the use of his right hand, after he lost a thumb and crushed his fingers in a work accident. The situation required her to think out of the box and, after working for weeks to restore sensation to the man's remaining fingers, she created a prosthetic thumb by attaching a piece of splint material to a thumb brace and covering it with a rubber tip.

When the idea came to her, Satterberg remembers running home and shouting, “I'm going to make a thumb!”

Her patient, Sunil Kumar Patel, who resettled in Berlin from India in 2006, could not be more appreciative of Satterberg's help. “In my country, they probably wouldn't fix the hand, they would just cut it off,” he said.

Through his continuing therapy sessions with Satterberg, Patel has now developed enough dexterity in his hand to pinch, grab and lift small and large objects. Together they are planning for the day when surgeons can implant a permanent thumb on his hand.

“The first time he picked up a pen and wrote his name was awesome,” Satterberg said.

Satterberg chose occupational therapy as a career while still attending high school in her home town of Portsmouth, N.H. She attended a job fair there and met a music therapist that she later followed on her rounds in a nursing home.

“I saw how she brought life to the people in the nursing home and I said, 'I want to be her,' ” Satterberg said.

Satterberg enrolled in the Boston School of Occupational Therapy at Tufts University and earned her bachelor's degree in 1983. She began her practice in a Pittsburgh rehabilitation facility. While there, she met and married her husband, Robert, and together they moved to San Andreas, Calif. Satterberg raised two sons there and practiced at the Mark Twain St. Joseph's Hospital, where she became certified in lymphedema therapy. She and her family moved to Connecticut in 2006 to be closer to her relatives.

“My cancer survivors are my heroes. I'm working with them at their hardest time in life,” she says. “It's very rewarding because now they know what's important in life.”

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