Effective Rehabilitation
Therapy is a Team Approach!
by Mike Cohn, M.Ed
Throughout my life I have
experienced Speech Therapy (ST), Occupational Therapy, (OT), and
Physical Therapy (PT) to help make my overall life and my day-to-day
living a little less difficult. I have had more speech therapy than
OT or PT, yet the way a person looks at their therapy program can
make a big difference if the programs are a benefit. This also might
depend on if the patient is going through a change (i.e. recovering
from an operation or just dealing with the normal life condition
of having a disability.)
After going to the rehabilitation
clinics and seeing and talking to other patients, I have come to
the conclusion that many places are not putting in place what I
call the team approach to rehabilitation therapy. Before I explain
my definition of the team approach to rehabilitation therapy, I
first need to explain one very important fact. That no matter how
long a person has been going through the different kinds of therapy,
it is up to the patient to make the program work for them. Many
times I have heard patients complain that it’s too
hard, I can’t do this, or it hurts! Stop! I always say no pain,
no gain. I also say you must push yourself if you want to get better.
I also think it is important to have a support team of people to
work with you. People have to push themselves if they want to get
better.
Why do I believe this is true? The answer is simple. Once the patient
goes home from the hospital or completes an outpatient therapy program
they must continue doing their exercise program if they want to see
their improvement continue.
Now, my definition of the team approach to rehabilitation therapy
is to have the patient, the therapist and the family all working
together. Sometimes the patient might not be in the mood to do exercises
that he or she needs to do. This is normal for anyone disabled or
not. Exercise is not always a priority on a daily basis, but it is
important to continue doing even if the individual stops one day
and then continues with the exercises at another time during the
day or perhaps the next day.
It may help for some people to exercise at a health club or gymnasium,
not at home. Why is that helpful? I think it makes a difference for
someone to exercise in an environment with other people because it
motivates them to go exercise, whereas, doing it at home alone can
become very boring and monotonous.
Thus the team approach
becomes useless if you don’t do your
exercises.
