Currently, not all states will allow occupational therapists to become dry needling certified. 

Occupational therapists are experts at observing and treating patients to improve their performance skills, training them in processing and interacting with their environment. Often patients are seeing us, especially those who work in outpatient orthopedic or neurorehabilitative settings, because there is a dysfunction in motor function, affecting their occupational performance. Dry needling is a useful and effective manual intervention that can assist in the improvement of muscle function by increasing blood flow and decreasing subsequent tightness. It has been shown to be a useful tool to not only reduce spasticity of the wrist flexors after a stroke (Fakhari et al. 2017), but to can also improve hand function with overuse syndromes (Sukumar, et al, 2015 & Azizian, et al, 2019). 

I have reached out to my state licensing board (NC) requesting they consider allowing OT's the opportunity to become dry needling certified. I was told they are waiting on AOTAs official stance on the subject before making a decision. I am hopeful the signatures on this petition will encourage AOTA to officially support OT's who want to seek dry needling certification.

Supportive Literature:
Fakhari, Z., Ansari, N. N., Naghdi, S., Mansouri, K., & Radinmehr, H. (2017). A single group, pretest-posttest clinical trial for the effects of dry needling on wrist flexors spasticity after stroke. NeuroRehabilitation, 40(3), 325-336.

Pai, R. S., & Vas, L. (2018). Ultrasound‐Guided Intra‐articular Injection of the Radio‐ulnar and Radio‐humeral Joints and Ultrasound‐Guided Dry Needling of the Affected Limb Muscles to Relieve Fixed Pronation Deformity and Myofascial Issues around the Shoulder, in a Case of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Type 1. Pain Practice, 18(2), 273-282.

Hando, B. R., Rhon, D. I., Cleland, J. A., & Snodgrass, S. J. (2019). Dry needling in addition to standard physical therapy treatment for sub-acromial pain syndrome: a randomized controlled trial protocol. Brazilian journal of physical therapy, 23(4), 355-363.

Sukumar, S., Mathias, L., & Rai, S. (2015). Early effects of dry needling and low level laser therapy in chronic tennis elbow-an experimental study. Int J Health Sci Res, 5(1), 187-96.

Twaddle, R. (2016). Inclusion of trigger point dry-needling in a multimodal physical therapy program for postoperative shoulder pain: a randomised controlled trial. New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy, 44(2).

Azizian, M., Bagheri, H., Olyaei, G., Shadmehr, A., Okhovatpour, M. A., Dehghan, P., ... & Sarafraz, H. (2019). Effects of dry needling on tendon-pulley architecture, pain and hand function in patients with trigger finger: a randomized controlled trial study. Journal of physical therapy science, 31(4), 295-298.