Roles Of Spinal Rehab Culver City Treatment Team

By Kathryn Samaniego


A spinal cord rehabilitation team consists of a group of individuals you and your family will be working with in case of an injury. So far as spinal decompression Culver City is concerned, each and every individual that you or your family will work with has an important and specialized role to perform. This team approach ensures that you and your family members are cared for the best way possible.

Generally speaking, the survivor will work with three teams. These are the medical team; the therapist team; and the support team. Read on to grab the roles of each of these teams one by one. The neurosurgeon or orthopedic spine surgeon heads up the medical team. He or She is responsible for managing acute care immediately following the injury as well as come up with a game plan regarding long time rehabilitation and care.

There are other specialist on the medical team. These include a psychologist, a dietician, a rehabilitation nurse, and a physiotherapist. Each of them has a specific role to play according to the needs of the survivor. As an example, the one who coordinates everything concerning the patient's rehabilitation is the physiotherapist and he supervises and works with different physical therapists with knowledge about the injury.

The coordinator of all nursing care and one who answers the questions bothering the survivor and his/her relatives concerning spinal injury is the rehabilitation nurse. Due to the injury, the patient would require a totally different form of diet in order to speed up the process and as such a dietician will come in handy to handle such requirement in a professional manner. After all said and done, for the survivor and family to be able to handle the new phase of life, the psychologist will be available for any advice or counseling.

The therapist would work with the survivor during the rehabilitation phase to return the survivor to the highest level of function possible. The physical therapist would help the survivor reach maximum range of motion, endurance and strength. He or she would also help the survivor deal with the process of finding a wheel chair as well as learning to transfer to it, sit in it and operate it.

In case there is speech or communication challenges, then a speech therapist is going to be a valuable member of the team. A recreational therapist assists to make sure the survivor functions at the highest level and afterwards introduces him to things that will make him independent and bring back fun to the patient's life. In the latter stages, a respiratory therapist should be on-board to help survivor's who are finding it difficult to breath because of the spinal cord injury.

The support team is the final one. They are made up of different specialists who would assist the survivor to go through life after the spinal cord injury. Social workers would be ready to assist the survivor to take care of important aspects of life such as lifestyle changes, relationships, and finances.

It is the responsibility of a case manager to act as a liaison between the survivor and insurance companies. A vocational counselor would help the survivor with work options while a rehabilitation engineer would design assisted aids that can be used by the survivor. When it comes to treatments, from the acute phase through rehabilitation, the people on your team would determine the success of your long-term outcome.




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