Specialty Clinics

In 2022, the School of Health Professions (SHP) implemented a Strategic Growth Plan. A key element of this plan added a Clinical Engagement pillar. The mission within this pillar was to forge new business partnerships to deliver preventive and therapeutic services, develop a road map for new products and services, and actively participate in initiatives to expand educational and clinical offerings in underserved communities. Today, the SHP Specialty Clinics are bringing care from our faculty and students directly to those in need in several specialties.

Adult Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT) Program

The Children’s of Alabama (COA)/University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Tourette Syndrome Center of Excellence (CofE), Adult Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT) Program is a 10-week, 8-session, telehealth program that works with adults (21+) on tics that are bothersome to them.

In the initial session, our experts conduct intensive interviews in order to gain a better understanding of the client’s tics and what activities or daily occupations the client is having issues with due to their tics. Follow up sessions generally run from 30 minutes to over an hour. Some people do not need all the sessions and some people do need all of them - the number of sessions is based on each individual and their specific needs.

Metabolic Health Clinic

The Metabolic Health Clinic provides nutrition therapy to optimize metabolic health based on the individual metabolic phenotype that is determined by analyzing insulin, glucose and lipid levels. Our team is committed to helping all individuals living with chronic metabolic disease achieve sustained, good health.

Their work begins with addressing the root cause, which is not your body weight, but other factors, including the way your genes and physiology interact with nutrition. Type 2 diabetes is a risk factor for, and is related to, other metabolic diseases. Thus, our team prescribe diets that address not only T2D but all metabolic diseases, including obesity and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Neuroplasticity Rehabilitation Program

The Neuroplasticity Rehabilitation Program is a faculty-led practice for outpatient neurorehabilitation for individuals with stroke, traumatic brain injury, and multiple sclerosis. Our team consists of UAB faculty who deliver rehabilitation that is driven by evidence-based results and that has been shown to produce beneficial changes in the brain. Our faculty have more than two decades of professional experience in Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) research and clinical practice.

Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy - or CI Therapy - was developed here by the UAB CI Therapy Research Group under the direction of Edward Taub, PhD, and featured in best-selling books “The Brain That Changes Itself” and “The Brain’s Way of Healing” by Norman Doidge, Ph.D.

Student Clinical Experience

Students across all levels – undergraduate through doctoral – and from all five departments work in non-profit clinics like the Firehouse Shelter Clinic (SHP-created clinic providing free access to compassionate care for Birmingham’s unhoused community) and Equal Access Birmingham (a student-run free clinic for the underserved). The SHP specialty clinics work closely with students from our Clinical Doctorate in Occupational Therapy and Doctor of Physical Therapy programs.