This is a part of the Hot Topic podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Sexuality and Intimacy After Burn Injury. Dr. Karen Kowalske explains different professionals you can talk to about sexuality and intimacy after burn injury. Ashley Overturf, OTR, also discusses topics that professionals may discuss regarding sex after a burn injury.

Karen Kowalske, M.D.

Co-Principal Investigator

North Texas Burn Rehabilitation Model System

You’ll meet many people on the burn team: physician extenders, nurse practitioners, and physician’s assistants, PT and OT, nursing, nutrition, social work. All of those people are there to maximize the outcome for the burn survivor. And all of us ask about whether you’re eating, whether you can dress yourself, how’s your pain, how’s your itch?

I think unfortunately too many of us don’t ask about sex. And I encourage everybody on the burn team to include that. It’s an activity of daily living. It’s a self-care activity. It’s part of burn survivor’s lives, and I think that’s something that we need to bring up more often. I also want to encourage burn survivors to talk to anyone that you feel comfortable talking to.

It’s been interesting to me that the best help is not always from the physician. One of the things that we’ve found is that physical and occupational therapy spend a lot more time with patients than the physicians do.

And they’re actually well equipped to discuss sexual function issues. Genital contractures, the dryness, positioning — and it’s someone that most burn survivors know very well and may be more comfortable discussing issues. And all of us on the team really want the very best for our burn survivors and if talking to the occupational therapist is the best approach for you, then do that. If they can’t answer your question they’ll find the answer for you because they’re vested in your outcome.

Ashley Overturf, O.T.

North Texas Burn Rehabilitation Model System

Parkland Memorial Hospital

So occupational therapy is really uniquely sort of primed to discuss sexual intimacy after a burn injury. As an occupational therapist, my primary role is self-care. So that includes getting dressed, going to the bathroom, taking a shower. Really kind of putting me in this really intimate moment with these people already, right?

So as we sort of talk about those things, it opens the window to other conversations about what else is important to you? Once we get really good at getting dressed, then we can talk about kind of the other roles that you have in your life.

So one of those roles is often partner or spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend. And so in that role, it’s important to most couples to also discuss sexual intimacy. So it gives us kind of a space to start that conversation.

Karen Kowalske, M.D.

Co-Principal Investigator

North Texas Burn Rehabilitation Model System

Psychologists are an integral part of the burn team. They’re there to offer support but also to really help with the challenges that a burn survivor goes through. Their approach to individuals is talk therapy, so it is a time where you can create a relationship and talk about anything.

They are very well equipped to deal with images of disfigurement, body image concerns, depression, anxiety, PTSD, but they’re also very well equipped to deal with how all of those interface with sexuality and to help with cognitive interventions, to help in ways that really can focus on sexuality, answer questions, problem solve, to make sure that an individual is really meeting all of their intimacy needs.

Visit https://msktc.org/burn and get the answers you need from experts who conduct innovative and high-quality research, provide patient care, and work to improve the health and overall quality of life for people with burn injury. That’s https://msktc.org/burn.