Admission Criteria

Patients appropriate for referral to the Rehabilitation Center include those with impairments in two or more of the following areas:

General Mobility:

Difficulty with turning in bed, sitting up, balancing, transferring, moving about and maneuvering a wheelchair.

Self-care skills:

Problems with bathing, dressing, feeding self, swallowing, toileting, home management, and money/math skills.

Perception/Cognition:

Poor memory, lack of insight into limitations, poor concentration, disorientation, difficulty with thinking skills and making decisions, impaired safety awareness/difficulty monitoring behavior to remain safe, difficulty perceiving the environment and impaired judgment.

Psychosocial functioning:

Impaired ability to initiate or interact with others in a manner that is acceptable /appropriate.

Bowel/Bladder management:

Incontinence requiring bowel and/or bladder programs/retraining.

Pain management:

Pain issues interfering with activities of daily living and/or mobility that do not impede the ability to actively participate in the rehabilitation program.

These impairments may be the result of one or more of the following:

• Stroke
• Brain injury
• Spinal cord injury
• Amputation
• Neurological disorder(s)
• Multiple trauma
• Fracture of femur/hip
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Burns
• Congenital deformity
• Severe/advanced osteoarthritis involving 2 or more major weight bearing joints (not including joints already replaced by prosthesis).
• Systemic vasculidities with joint inflammation
• Joint replacements that meet at least one of the following stipulations:
  • Bilateral joint replacements
  • Body mass index (BMI) >50
  • Age > 85
• Certain complex medical/surgical conditions

The physiatrist (physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor) determines admission to the Rehabilitation Center, with the assistance of a Rehabilitation Liaison nurse. Function impairment, the ability and desire to benefit from and participate in a comprehensive rehabilitation program, a medical condition requiring hospital based care and daily physician monitoring, the patient’s social network, and expectation of discharge to a community setting are the major factors in determining appropriateness for admission.