What do patients with spinal cord injuries need to know after leaving a rehabilitation center?

In our current healthcare climate, we don’t get to spend as much time with patients with spinal cord injury in inpatient rehab as we used to. So there are often things we often don’t get a chance to get in their inpatient stay, so additional therapy, after inpatient rehab, can really help to solidify some of the skills that were learned in inpatient rehab—to take what they’ve learned home, and the barriers that they’ve found that they didn’t realize were going to exist. To be able to address those in a setting where a therapist can really help problem solve, and help them to become more effective in managing their everyday life.

When patients leave the acute rehab hospital, it’s usually a very scary, intimidating journey, because they’ve been in this very safe, warm little cocoon, for lack of a better phrase, that’s really been guiding them through their daily lives. But now they’re going back home and even if it’s not a new home, it’s new since their injury. And it’s probably going to be a little intimidating, maybe a little scary. And what I tell my patients is this: “Therapy doesn’t stop just because you go home, the only thing it means is that you’re not sick and you don’t need to be in a hospital any more.” We encourage participation in homecare therapies if they can’t get to a outpatient center. We definitely want to see our patients back in our outpatient department, so they can continue working on those skills. Sometimes there’re different research studies that the patients and families can be involved in, which they would also see more in an outpatient setting. It is just really a great way to be involved and give back to the community, and kind of be one those people every researcher wants to have in life where they can say, “I know I can count on this person for this study.” So it’s a really great opportunity for everybody.