Working Toward Wellness

Mindy Murray and Arlene Baker
Owners of Kaua’i Therapy and Wellness and In Home Therapy Services

Please tell us about your business. Mindy: We offer quality physical, occupational, speech and massage therapy. We have a great staff that visits people in their homes across the entire island. We also opened a location in Puhi in May, so that clients can leave their homes when they are able to and use the larger machines or things that we cannot bring with us, like a recumbent bike. My mother and I are both registered occupational therapists.

Who are your clients and why did you open the clinic? Mindy: They are people who were in a hospital, were ill or who come out of the hospital weak. They are often elderly people who can’t leave their homes. When we go into their homes, we can see them from that day until they’re done. When we feel like they are walking and doing well, we ask them if they’d like to come to the clinic. They don’t have to switch therapists; they can stay with the same person and move to another setting. So we graduate them to the clinic as they get better. That was our purpose in opening our clinic in Puhi. We started our business in Kalaheo two years ago and realized, at a certain point, that we had to send clients away, and we wanted to continue with them.

What is occupational therapy? Mindy: It’s very similar to physical therapy. We look at the whole person and not just how they’re ambulating or how they use their walking devices. We look at their everyday activities like bathing and brushing their teeth – everything.

Arlene: For example, stroke patients who live alone need to learn how to dress themselves, how to get to the bathroom and we teach them how they can do it safely.

Mindy: We want them to be as independent as possible and as safe as possible.

What sort of ailments do you treat? Mindy: There are a wide range of diagnoses that we treat here. It can be anything from a fracture of a bone, a developmental disability, arthritis, back pain and neurological problems.

What kind of special treatments do you offer? Mindy: We have an 830 laser. It’s a healing modality that’s FDA-approved and billable by insurance. It treats a wide variety of ailments. The light goes about two inches into the skin. They are photons that you don’t even feel, and it can bring immediate relief to carpal tunnel syndrome, edema, swelling or fractures – it helps speed the healing. It even helps with migraines and TMJ. We have two that are portable and one in the back of our treatment room in Puhi.

Why did you start the business? Mindy: We worked with an agency called Hawaii Health Care Professionals, a home health agency. We weren’t being paid, but we continued to work. I had patients I just couldn’t stop seeing – they wouldn’t get out of bed if I didn’t show up. The company eventually went under and we were out of work.

Arlene: Mindy suggested we open our own business. Since we had a lot of connections, I knew it could be done and so we just started doing home health.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of your business? Arlene: Seeing the patients getting better. That’s just thrilling. I just feel like that’s what I’m called to do.

What’s the most challenging aspect of your business? Mindy: The insurance companies – learning about each and every insurance company. It’s the business part. The therapist part I can practically do in my sleep.

What sets your business apart from others? Mindy: Our in-home therapy visits as well as having our clinic. We also have the 830 laser that has brought wonderful results. It makes you feel good when you have something that helps people like that.

3-1866 Kaumualii Hwy.
kauaihometherapy.com aloha@kauaihometherapy.com
333-3688