Rehabilitation: Who Needs It, Its Goals, and the Therapies Involved

Rehabilitation is care that helps you get back, keep or improve the abilities you need for daily life. Those abilities can be physical, mental or cognitive (thinking and learning), and they may have been lost to a disease or injury, or as a side effect of medical treatment. Rehabilitation can make daily life and functioning better.

Who needs it

Rehabilitation is for people who have lost abilities they need every day. Among the most common causes:

• injuries and trauma, including burns, fractures (broken bones), traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury
• stroke
• severe infections
• major surgery
• side effects of treatment, such as cancer treatment
• certain birth defects and genetic disorders
• developmental disabilities
• chronic pain, including back and neck pain

Its goals

The overall aim is to help you regain your abilities and your independence. The specific goals differ from person to person, depending on what caused the problem, whether that cause is ongoing or temporary, which abilities were lost and how severe the problem is. For example:

• after a stroke, someone may need rehabilitation to dress or bathe without help;
• after a heart attack, an active person may go through cardiac rehabilitation to get back to exercising;
• someone with a lung disease may have pulmonary rehabilitation to breathe better and improve their quality of life.

What a program involves

You usually work with a team of health care providers who assess your needs and set goals and a treatment plan with you. A plan can include:

• assistive devices — tools, equipment and products that help people with disabilities move and function
• cognitive rehabilitation therapy, to relearn or improve thinking, learning, memory, planning and decision-making
• mental health counseling
• music or art therapy, to express feelings, sharpen thinking and build social connections
• nutritional counseling
• occupational therapy, for daily activities
• physical therapy, for strength, mobility and fitness
• recreational therapy, for emotional well-being, through arts and crafts, games, relaxation training and animal-assisted therapy
• speech-language therapy, for speaking, understanding, reading, writing and swallowing
• treatment for pain
• vocational rehabilitation, to build skills for school or work

Where it happens

Depending on your needs, rehabilitation can take place in providers' offices, a hospital or an inpatient rehabilitation center. Sometimes a provider comes to your home — in which case you will need family members or friends who can help with your rehabilitation.

Sources

Based on "Rehabilitation", MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine; a work of the United States government in the public domain, rewritten in hubnx's own words.