Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Head Injury Rehabilitation is our multidisciplinary treatment program for mild to moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients.
Because TBI cases tend to be complicated, key to the program’s success in working with TBI patients is its multidisciplinary nature, as this brings to bear a range of viewpoints on each individual case. This avoids the “disciplinary blinders” that can naturally occur when relying exclusively on one discipline for treatment. In contrast, Head Injury Rehabilitation is staffed by experienced professionals from neurology, neuropsychology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, psychiatry, counseling, vocational rehabilitation, exercise physiology, and nursing. This allows a wide scope of diverging perspectives which complement each other.
Accurate diagnosis, knowing precisely what one is looking at in a patient, is also a key component of our approach. Therefore the first step towards entry into the program begins with comprehensive neuropsychological, medical and psychological assessments, after which all the evaluating parties meet to discuss the case to come up with a unified summary of recommendations for treatment. Please note that evaluation per se does not necessarily mean that a patient will be entered into the program, as one of the questions to be answered during evaluation is “is this patient appropriate for treatment in our setting?”. Whether we determine that treatment in the program is the right approach for any particular patient or not, we always provide recommendation alternatives for the patient and his or her treating physicians.
If treatment in the program is recommended it is individualized for each patient, and revolves, to a large extent, around skills training of new strategies to compensate for the difficulties caused by cognitive deficits. We provide this one-on-one training in a simulated work or home environment, and in the community, at the sites where cognitive deficits are creating functional problems for the patient. This is accompanied by individual psychological and medical treatment. Lastly, vital to our program and our success is education for the patient and his or her family and employer to normalize the aftermath and recovery from traumatic brain injury.
For patients very early post injury we offer cognitive screening to provide treaters with an early indicator of potential problems. We also provide psychological evaluation and treatment and Independent Medical Exams as requested.