Patients, their family members and friends are often overwhelmed during care transitions so we have compiled some frequently asked questions about our transitional care hospitals. Whether you are a patient, loved one or healthcare professional, here are a few things about our transitional care hospitals you should know: Read Full Post

Helping others recognize the signs of a stroke can shorten the time before a person gets treatment, and faster medical treatment can minimize long-term effects or prevent death.

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The typical stay at a traditional hospital is five days. At Kindred Transitional Care Hospitals, the length of stay may be measured in weeks, not days. Why? Because we know that not all patients can recover in five days or less. Some have underlying conditions that make illnesses or other conditions harder to treat. Others are still too ill to return home.

At Kindred Hospitals, we offer a range of services to help patients who need additional time to recover, and the length of the stay depends on the needs of the patient. This includes the specialized services of our Subacute Units, where we work with patients who have an acute illness or injury or worsening of a disease but no longer need the aggressive level of care provided in a hospital. We offer short-term comprehensive inpatient medical care and rehabilitation that is designed to get the patient home or to a facility such as a skilled nursing center.

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An individualized care plan is critical when helping brain injury patients recover and return home. And it takes a team of specialists to tailor the rehabilitation plan so it addresses both the physical, cognitive, and emotional issues involved.

The brain injury program at Kindred’s Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospitals focuses on helping patients restore function and learn how to do things differently when functions can’t be restored to pre-injury levels. The program combines a multidisciplinary team with the technologies and tools specifically geared toward brain injuries.

In addition to physician specialists, Kindred’s brain injury team includes rehabilitation trained nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, clinical dietitians, neuropsychologists, orthotists, social workers and case managers. The therapists often have extensive training in areas such as Neuro-IFRAH, Neurodevelopmental technique, Vital Stim, and more.

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When you are injured or ill, you may need rehabilitation services to help in recovery. Rehabilitation helps you improve your body’s functions, but there are different levels of services depending on your medical condition. Our Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospitals (also known as IRFs) are for patients who need a higher level of care and more intense occupational, physical and speech therapy.

Patients in a Kindred Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospital are medically stable, but also need 24-hour nursing care and daily physician oversight. They are considered able to perform at least three hours of therapy a day, five days a week. Our goal is to restore function as fully as possible, and help the patient learn how to do things differently when functions can’t be restored to previous levels.

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Kim Warchol has been an Occupational Therapist specializing in dementia for more than 24 years. One minute of listening to her talk about her field and you can hear the years of experience and passion in every word. But she readily admits that she wasn’t prepared to deal with cognitive impairment when she first started practicing.

Her “aha!” moment came through the work of Claudia Kay Allen, MA, OTR/L, FAOTA, which completely changed her perspective from focusing on the limitations of patients with cognitive impairment to focusing on uncovering what they could do. She hasn’t looked back since and, she says, she is no longer “leaving these vulnerable individuals to fend for themselves.”

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When someone suffers a traumatic brain trauma — whether it’s from an automobile accident, severe stroke or other injury — he or she is initially admitted to an Intensive Care Unit. After patients are medically stable, it may be necessary to transfer them to a long-term acute care or transitional care facility before an acute rehabilitation or subacute rehabilitation facility.

According to Terry Eberly, a speech pathologist at Kindred Hospital Denver, two assessment methods are used to determine the extent of the injury and issues that need to be addressed:

Based on the results of the evaluation, a plan is customized to the needs of the individual, encompassing and integrating therapies to treat respiratory, speech, motor, visual, orthopedic and other identified issues.

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Watch Kelly's inspirational story of hope, healing and recovery. Kelly, a 37 year old wife, teacher and mother of two gradually lost feeling in her legs and then woke up one day paralyzed from her neck down. Kelly's doctor sent her to Kindred Transitional Care and Rehabilitation – Greenbriar to see if rehabilitation therapy could help her condition improve. With Kelly's positive attitude and the dedicated staff at Greenbriar, she was able to walk again. This story, with video of Kelly during her therapy takes place from December of 2012 through March of 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JIvgARQ7n4

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Knowing the signs and symptoms of a stroke is always important, but since May is Stroke Awareness Month, it seems like a good time for a reminder. A stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is cut off, resulting in lack of oxygen and other nutrients. Some areas of the brain can die, which results in loss of function.

 

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Kindred Healthcare's commitment to our patients is to provide hope, healing and recovery and that means committing to using the latest technologies in pulmonary rehabilitation. Please take a moment to answer the polls and check back next week when we give you the full story on these two important advances in pulmonary rehab. In the meantime, scroll down to the comments and share your experience with these important pieces of history.

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