Success Stories
Joe
Kindred Saved My Life
Joe came to Kindred Hospital Philadelphia unable to move and seriously ill with sepsis. At Kindred, a team including nurses, physicians and rehabilitation therapists worked to help him reach the next level – intensive rehabilitation at a Kindred joint venture rehab hospital – and then home.
Read More
John
Everyone Worked Together
John was working on his farm. He hopped off his tractor to shut a gate and his tractor kept moving.
“I tried to jump on it, like a dummy, and fell,” John said. “The tractor ran over me.”
Read More
He was immobilized with broken bones, fractured ribs and a punctured lung.
“Somehow I was able to wiggle around and get the cell phone out of my pocket,” he said. He called his wife, and within an hour a medical helicopter was taking him to a short-term acute care hospital.
He stayed there in the Intensive Care Unit for seven weeks and was then admitted to Kindred Hospital.
“Really, by that point he was still in critical condition,” his wife said. “He was totally dependent on a ventilator to breathe. The people at the hospital had done everything they could – we just needed to go somewhere where they had expertise in caring for vent patients.”
Almost immediately, the caregivers at Kindred Hospital began rehabilitation therapy and the process of weaning John from the ventilator.
“He had been on his back for seven weeks, and gradually they kept having him do a little more at a time,” his wife said. “The walking helped him strengthen his lungs.”
“I felt like I was making progress, absolutely,” John said. “I’d heard of Kindred before, but I didn’t really know what they did.”
Six weeks later, John was released to home care to fully recover.
“By the time we left, he was walking, breathing, swallowing and eating,” his wife said. “And it was the teamwork that was great.”
“The care was excellent,” John said. “Everybody knew what they were doing and everybody worked together.”
“Just excellent.”
Mr. N
Great Strides Toward Recovery
Mr. N, 54, came to Kindred Hospital in January 2009 after a bad bout of pneumonia had sent him into acute respiratory failure. He arrived at Kindred after treatment at a local short-term acute care hospital left him on a ventilator for two months. Mr. N had lived for 13 years at home under tracheostomy home care and nocturnal ventilation, requiring an oxygen level of 40 percent.
Read More
Upon admission, Mr. N began immediate treatment not only for acute respiratory failure, but also for a bad case of recurring cellulitis in his lower right leg. He was monitored daily by a primary care physician, a pulmonologist and the wound care team.
In just three weeks, Mr. N was weaned off the vent. By the end of his stay, his required oxygen level was down to 30%.
Mr. N also received IV antibiotic therapy and topical medications as part of his wound care treatment program. Within only 14 days, his painful cellulitis and ulcerations had vastly improved.
With his wounds significantly healed and his new independence from the ventilator, Mr. N began working diligently with Kindred’s rehabilitation staff to get back on his feet.
After just six weeks of medical treatment and physical rehabilitation at Kindred, Mr. N. left breathing on his own and able to walk. Having made huge strides toward recovery at Kindred Hospital, Mr. N was transferred to a skilled nursing facility for continued rehabilitation in the hopes of an eventual return home.