Inpatient Rehabilitation Program / Acute Care Therapy

The Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation department at Parkland Health focuses on guiding patients through recovery after significant medical challenges. Whether you're healing from an injury, stroke or surgery, our goal is to improve the quality of life and restore your daily function.

The 24-bed Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit (also known as Acute Care Therapy) provides both physician and therapy services for patients admitted to the hospital who have rehabilitation needs. Parkland's Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit team cares to meet the specialized needs of patients age 13 and up who are recovering from traumatic brain injuries, multiple trauma and other complex orthopedic and medical conditions, spinal cord injuries, burns, arthritis, neurological disorders and other conditions that may leave the patients impaired. We provide inpatient rehabilitation care to patients with burn injuries aged 10 and over.

Healing and Recovery

• Patients admitted to the inpatient rehabilitation floor are treated by a team of professionals including rehabilitation physicians, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, recreational therapists, patient care technicians, psychologists, dietitians, orthotist/prosthetists, respiratory therapy, social workers and case managers.
• Ongoing caregiver/family training is provided to prepare you for your discharge home. Information may be needed in regard to your living situation (i.e. home apartment, stairs to enter, doorway widths, and bathroom configuration). Specific training is also provided in the use of equipment, walkers, wheelchairs or other assistive devices, medication management, wound care and disease management.
• Patients receive an individualized treatment plan including three hours of therapy daily at least five days a week. The goal is to help patients to be as independent as possible for a higher quality of life. Goals during treatment concentrate on: adjusting to lifestyle changes, returning to community setting, focusing on specific patient and caregiver needs, achieving maximum function and state of wellness, participating in decision making, psychological adjustment, and preventing complications. Once per week all provider specialties meet to look at the treatment goals for each patient. They discuss whether goals are reasonable for the patient's abilities and whether goals are being met. If not, changes are made and treatment adjusted. They also make decisions about the discharge plan during these meetings.
• The Parkland Inpatient Rehabilitation unit is part of both the Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems (TBIMS) and Burn Injury Model Systems (BIMS), sponsored by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). These partners help us bring innovative projects, research and resources to our patients.
  

Understanding Admission and Continued Care

To qualify for admission to rehab and continued stay, the patient:

• Must have medical/surgical conditions under control and able to be managed on the rehab unit.
• Must be able to tolerate at least three hours of therapy five days a week or more.
• Must need services from more than one specialty at a level that would require inpatient rehabilitation.
• Needs at least two therapies and rehabilitative nursing.
• Is willing to take part in an intensive rehabilitation program.
• Is able to make significant improvement in a reasonable amount of time and have realistic goals for a transition to their community.

Patients will be discharged from the Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit when any of the following are met:

• No documented evidence of measurable improvement.
• The patient has improved to the projected functional level that will safely allow discharge to a specified environment, supervised or unsupervised.
• The patient has received maximum benefit from the program.
• The patient experiences a major intervening surgical, medical, or psychological problem that precludes benefit rom a continued intensive rehab program.
• The patient and/or family no longer desires to be active participants in the program.
• The patient signs out AMA (Against Medical Advice) or LBTC (Leaves Before Treatment Complete).
• The funding source (i.e. insurance) for the patient's stay refuses/denies continued stay and an alternative safe discharge level of care is arranged.

Inpatient Hospital Services

A large therapy staff is spread throughout the hospital system to provide treatment to any patient in need. Service areas include, but are not limited to, neurology, neurosurgery, trauma, specialty surgical services, burns, oncology and general medicine areas. The therapy staff will even evaluate patients in the emergency department to reduce wait times.

Adult Intensive Care Units: The therapy team starts helping patients as early as their Intensive Care Unit (ICU) stay. Parkland’s nationally recognized early mobility program helps patients start to talk, walk and perform self -care activities to preserve function during acute illness while in the ICU.

Burn Unit: Therapists dedicated to the burn ICU and step- down unit have been implementing early mobility practice standards before the term was ever coined. Our physical and occupational therapists spend ample time stretching and mobilizing patients to improve short- and long-term outcomes. Speech therapists utilize objective swallow evaluations via Fiberoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallow (FEES), implement communication training for tracheostomized patients and work to improve mouth/jaw movement for feeding.

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Parkland houses one of the largest Level III Neo-Natal ICUs in the U.S with 96 beds housed in private rooms for each infant and family. Our dedicated team of specialized physical, occupational and speech therapists include a Certified Neo-natal therapist and Infant Massage therapist. Therapy helps the tiniest patients meet developmental milestones and safely swallow to get home faster.

Inpatient Psychiatric Care: Occupational therapists play an important role in improving social/ behavioral skills and self-care skills during one-on-one treatment or within a group therapy setting.

Helpful Links and Program Details

Discover more about our Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit by viewing our brochure in English or Spanish.

Interested in Stroke Rehab? Visit our program page.

See how our Inpatient Rehab Unit is making an impact, click here for FY24 data.

Explore the future of Parkland's Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit in our Strategic Plan 2024-2026.

Contact Us

For more information, call us at 469-419-9634.

Location

Parkland Memorial Hospital
5200 Harry Hines Blvd., Floor 17
Dallas, 75235
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