Summer 2014 Edition

Most physical medicine and rehabilitation professionals agree that full participation in society – or community integration – is the ultimate goal of rehabilitation. While much has been written on the topic, defining what community integration means to the individual learning to live with a “new normal” remains a challenge. For most patients, the inpatient rehabilitation experience is a pivotal transitional moment when family, caregivers and clinicians provide the support the individual needs to access the community and engage fully in life.

Returning people to active and productive lives in the community is the ultimate goal of rehabilitation. It’s also the foundation on which TIRR Memorial Hermann has built its programs since its founding 55 years ago. As rehabilitation professionals, we have long known that good management of the transition between hospital and home is critical to recovery and essential to reducing post-discharge admissions to acute care hospitals. In an environment with increased emphasis by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and other payers on producing the best outcomes, TIRR Memorial Hermann is ahead of the game.

Therapeutic recreation encourages creativity, promotes social interaction and helps patients recovering from spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury work on enhancing their functional abilities. At TIRR Memorial Hermann, therapeutic recreation specialists, occupational therapists and physical therapists involve patients in various activity groups and schedule community outings ranging from shopping to group dining at restaurants to visits to the Houston Museum of Science or the University of Houston, based on their individual goals.

Three programs at University Place complete the continuum of care offered though the Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Network. Residents can choose to be part of the community and access the services they need to remain independent. The 60-bed University Place Nursing Center, ranked a five-star nursing facility by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and U.S. News & World Report, provides a broad range of individualized care.

Mark Sherer, PhD, ABPP, FACRM, and Angelle Sander, PhD, are editors of a new handbook compiled to provide practical information to neuropsychologists and others practicing in the field of brain injury medicine. Called the Handbook on the Neuropsychology of Traumatic Brain Injury, the 20-chapter volume is the second in a series of Clinical Handbooks in Neuropsychology published by Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global scientific, technical and medical publisher.

The Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU) program at TIRR Memorial Hermann has been the primary provider of technical assistance and training for the independent living field for well over three decades. Over the past 15 years, ILRU has become a resource to a larger group of organizations and states engaged in self directed, community based services. The overarching objective has been to further a growing movement of peer based community programs designed to be to the needs of constituents.

My job is to provide the education and resources my patients need to be able to move forward and live life to the fullest.” The words of Emily Potter, OTR, embody the spirit of the physicians, therapists, nurses and other professionals who provide rehabilitative care with a goal of community integration at TIRR Memorial Hermann. In 2001, Potter sustained a T11 spinal cord injury (SCI) in an automobile accident, paralyzing her from the waist down. During her therapy sessions, she discovered an interest in occupational therapy.

McCormick was transported by ambulance to the Memorial Hermann Mischer Neuroscience Institute at the Texas Medical Center, where he spent the next five days. “I’ve been a commercial photographer for 32 years,” he says. “When I had my stroke, it hit really hard. It affected my right side from my shoulder to my foot, as well as my speech. I had to begin the process of learning to walk and talk all over again, and work to move my fingers. My right hand didn’t work at all. I was just two months away from a major job in Los Angeles that I shoot every year. The challenge was a very big mountain to climb.”

Clinical trials of interventions to improve outcome after traumatic brain injury (TBI) have typically used objective measures as the key study outcomes. Such measures were selected based on the judgment of the investigators as informed by their clinical experience and knowledge of the previous literature on TBI. Examples of such outcomes include survival, global outcome, cognitive recovery or community integration.

News to note for the Summer 2014 edition of the TIRR Memorial Hermann Journal highlights two stories: TIRR Memorial Hermann Investigators Evaluate SCI Outcomes Instruments in Children and Symposium on Wellness and Independence After Spinal Cord Injury.

Find Accolades, On the Move, In Print, On the Podium and Poster Presentations for Summer 2014.

Carl E. Josehart, Chief Executive Officer of TIRR Memorial Hermann, shares a message for the Summer 2014 edition of the TIRR Memorial Hermann Journal.