Four Focus Areas of Recovery

We help patients strengthen muscles that aid in self-care activities, balance improvement, coordination and endurance.

We focus on patient mobility because it can increase:

• Ability to return home
• Independence
• Ability to perform other rehabilitation activities
• Quality of life
• Ability to return to work, school, community and daily routines

We work on strengthening and controlling facial muscles to help create sounds for speech and enunciation, finding words, understanding others, reading, writing and communicating.

We focus on restoring speech because:

• Speech provides dignity, allowing patients to participate in their own care, express their wishes and communicate with family members and others.
• Patients who can speak are less likely to experience depression and anxiety.*

*Freeman-Sanderson et al., J Crit Care, 2016; 33:186-191

We help strengthen muscles to prevent aspiration and improve swallowing, hydration, nutrition and ultimately advance our patients to a normal diet.

We focus on restoring the ability to eat because:

• Safe swallowing increases the variety of nutritional foods patients can eat.
• A balanced diet prevents muscle loss and enhances the ability to participate in therapy sessions.
• “Normal” forms of eating increase a patient’s sense of independence, quality of life and community since many gatherings center around food.

We address cognitive impairments by actively working with patients to improve their thinking and cognition, and by teaching safety strategies and techniques that help with activities of daily life.

We focus on the importance of thinking and cognitive rehabilitation because it:

• Improves executive functions such as decision-making
• Enhances the ability to perform daily tasks and routines
• Prepares patients to return home and regain their quality of life