Any rehabilitation team is comprised of different types of specialists who deal with the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the patient. Find here a description of a few of them along with their responsibilities.
1. Rehabilitation is a continuous process
where a team of
doctors, nurses, therapists and various
other medical professionals is formed to
help the patient recover from his
present state of illness to a normal state
of health.
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2. The rehabilitation team is formed based on the
illness of the patient. For example the doctors,
nurses and therapists in a drug rehabilitation
team will be different from those in an accident
rehabilitation team. Each member of the team
with his/her individual expertise has a different
approach in healing the patient.
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3. Various needs of the client decides which
therapist will be a part of the rehabilitation team.
Some of these needs are the client’s
illness, duration of illness, severity of the
same, financial capability of the client and his
insurance coverage. Usually a rehabilitation team
comprises of the following members:
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4. The Physiatrist is the leader of the rehabilitation team. He
assesses the patient carefully and monitors the patient’s
progress. He decides what all medical services the patient
needs and then designs the program as per the patient’s
need. He will design a patient oriented treatment
program based on which the other members of the team
will be decided. His specialization is physical medicine
and rehabilitation.
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5. Often after a serious illness or brain damage, a patient
may not able to behave or think as he use to before the
accident. Severe brain damage may be the cause for this.
So a Neuropsychologist monitors these changes and then
designs such programs that will help the patient recover
quickly. A Neuropsychologist will also educate the
family members of the patient to accept this change in the
patient and ways to deal with it.
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6. After a traumatic brain injury a person may suffer from
musculoskeletal or neuromuscular issues. This injury
affects his daily activities. The work of a physical
rehabilitation therapist is to work on improving this
problem of the patient. He will focus on the development
of posture, strength, physical independence, quality
movement, balance coordination and other sensory
motor activities.
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7. Nurses who deal with rehabilitation patients are
trained to take care of the everyday need of the
patients. Often after severe brain or physical
injury a person may find it difficult to take care
of oneself, so these nurses are trained to take care
of patients.
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8. A person suffering from any sort of brain injury may face
difficulty in talking clearly. Therefore, it becomes difficult
for the family members to understand what the patient is
trying to say. Sometimes, the patient may also feel
frustrated when he is not able to communicate properly.
In such cases, a speech therapist helps the patient by
checking his condition and then designing a specific
program of exercises and therapies that would help him
communicate with the society.
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9. The work of an occupational therapist is to make
a patient learn advanced independence skills that
will help him in various ways in his personal life.
The patient will be taught
cooking, laundering, shopping and banking by
an occupational therapist.
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10. The job of a recreational therapist is to make a
patient indulge in all those activities that the
patient enjoys. He brings a positive attitude in a
patient by making the latter realize that life can
be fun and enjoyable.
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11. After any kind of a traumatic incident, be it
accident or illness a patient goes through
depression and other negative feelings. It is very
important that a rehab counselor counsels the
patient and adds positive attitude in him. This is
important as healthy mind will lead to a faster
healing.
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12. These medical experts form a
rehabilitation team and help the patient in
various ways to get back to a normal life.
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