Chronic pain affects so many aspects of a person's life that addressing these properly requires a comprehensive treatment team committed to helping you. Our Functional Restoration Program aims to assist you to recover your physical, emotional, and social well-being, and it is consequently staffed by experts in rehabilitation and pain management, health psychology, physical therapy, nursing, and vocational rehabilitation.
Treatment Goals
The treatment team helps individuals on the path toward regaining control and feeling more genuinely involved in their lives. We recognize that pain may have so limited your activities that you are no longer doing the things that bring pleasure and meaning to your life. For many people, this causes depression, uncertainty, and even despair, making it that much harder to cope with pain and all the baggage that comes with it. Reversing this cycle is not easy, but it is entirely within your means once you realize that making small but consistent changes in your everyday life can lead you back once again to a more satisfying life.
We aim to teach you how to cope with pain more effectively so that you can make changes in your activities even as they may cause some discomfort, especially at first. Learning more effective ways of carrying out activities can help you to achieve more than you may have thought possible. This can allow your pain to become less of a disturbance as you recover more enjoyment and satisfaction in everyday life.
To this end, we encourage you as much as possible to work towards resuming normal function, including work, play and social activities. We will provide resources to help you to:
regain the physical strength and endurance necessary for your involvement in life activities
re-establish more normal relationships with friends and family
overcome depression and anxiety
reduce your use of inappropriate or excessive medications
reduce your level of suffering from pain, and
replace a self-image of disability and hopelessness with one of wellness and optimism.
We understand that making these changes, however desirable, require your ongoing effort and commitment. For treatment to be successful, we ask you to:
sincerely desire to live as fully and normally as possible
be willing to work to make changes in your life
understand that improvement is not something we can provide you, but something we will help you achieve
be willing to allow others to relate to you as the person you are, not just as a medical patient
What to Expect
Your first visit to The Rehab Center will be for an evaluation. We begin each evaluation before you even arrive here by carefully reviewing your medical records from other doctors and institutions. Based on our review of these records, an evaluation is tailored to your needs, and appropriate members of the evaluation team are scheduled to meet with you.
Our 3-Point Evaluation consists of comprehensive interviews and examinations by a physical therapist, a physician specializing in pain medicine and rehabilitation, and a health psychologist. If we determine that further diagnostic tests are needed, or if a treatable cause for your pain can be identified, the appropriate test or treatment is recommended. For individuals with unresolved chronic pain, we may recommend that you participate involvement in our Functional Restoration Program. In either case, the evaluation team will discuss and carefully explain the treatment plan to you and available family members once we have finished all assessments and before you leave our facility.
The Functional Restoration Program
The Functional Restoration Program is typically 20 days in length with therapy, education, and individual treatment sessions taking place over an eight-hour day, five days a week for four weeks. If you are coming from out of town, lodging is available at a nearby hotel, convenient to several restaurants, and The Rehab Center will provide you transportation to and from our facility during weekdays.
The Functional Restoration Program includes such services as:
Medication management to direct patients toward the use of non-addicting treatments for pain, insomnia and depression.
Physical therapy to teach proper body mechanics and improve strength, flexibility, and endurance.
Education to teach the causes of pain and related problems, as well as the behaviors that are likely to make it better or worse.
Psychotherapy to reduce depression, anxiety, anger or other emotions that increase pain.
Coping-skills and relaxation training to teach stress reduction, interpersonal skills, and reduce reliance on illness as a way of coping.
Vocational counseling to assist re-entry into the job market.
While in the program, you will work with our entire treatment team, including our physician, psychologists, physical therapists, rehabilitation nurse and vocational specialist. Each of our professional staff will work with you to develop a plan of treatment to address your particular challenges. Each team member will work with you on an individual and group basis. You will meet with your physician every day to address and medical issues as you progress in your rehabilitation.
You will notice a significant emphasis on education in the Functional Restoration Program. Educational sessions are held each day regarding the multiple issues involved in dealing with chronic pain. It is our belief that the more accurate information you have about your condition, the better prepared you will be to manage your own chronic pain. The program schedule has been designed to provide you with a balance of activities throughout the day, with regular breaks from physical activity.
Once a week, you will meet with the entire treatment team to discuss your progress and goals for the upcoming week. This provides you a good opportunity to ask questions and obtain feedback on your progress and continued needs.
Because we recognize the effort it takes to succeed in rehabilitation, we will celebrate your completion of the program with a small graduation ceremony recognizing your progress and accomplishments. We anticipate that you will then be able to leave the program feeling stronger, better, more knowledgeable, and well equipped to cope as you return to a more satisfying and independent life.
