Through expansion and synthesis of complementary professional roles and lived experience, Blake holds career-long aspirations of optimizing the development and provision of established and emerging assistive technologies for people living with life-altering disabilities.
Blake Perkins is a physical therapist at the MetroHealth System in Cleveland, Ohio. Blake lives with paraplegia due to a spinal cord injury (SCI) sustained in 2011 and has over a decade of experience as an end-user, clinician, lobbyist, and credentialed assistive technology professional in complex rehabilitation technology.
Blake is the lead clinician at the MetroHealth outpatient wheelchair clinic, and co-founder/lead clinician of the MetroHealth Adaptive Life Technologies lab, promoting clinically-guided, peer-informed, and community-collaborative assistive technologies for individuals living with various life-altering disabilities. He additionally serves as a member of the MetroHealth Tetraplegia Management Clinic team, a multidisciplinary group of researchers, engineers, nursing staff, and clinicians who collectively identify and implement solutions to maximize upper extremity function for individuals with cervical-level SCI.
Blake’s research interests and responsibilities work in harmony with his clinical practice. A member of the MetroHealth Center for Rehabilitation Research, he investigates the development and implementation of novel technologies and rehabilitation strategies to maximize function and independence for people living with SCI and other life-altering impairments.
Publications
Entire publication list can be found here.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Investigator
MetroHealth System
Investigator
Cleveland FES Center
CONTACT INFORMATION
Program Contact
Blake Perkins
Contact Phone
216-957-3691
Contact Email
bperkins@metrohealth.org
