Picking Our Brain with Shepherd Center

When a patient has a spinal cord injury, depending on the level of injury, breathing can become the most important issue they and their family are facing. When a patient has limited use of their diaphragm, respiratory therapists assist through ventilator management or coughing assistance. Respiratory therapists keep the patient breathing and get them breathing on their own before physical recovery can begin.

Shepherd Center respiratory therapist Kelley Taylor is here today to speak about the role of respiratory therapy in the rehabilitation process.

About 700,000 strokes occur in the United States each year. To serve the healthcare needs of these patients, Shepherd Center provides a full continuum of services – from inpatient rehabilitation to outpatient care for stroke rehabilitation.

The hospital’s program specializes in rehabilitation for people who may be in college, raising a family or in the prime of their career.

In today’s podcast, Dr. Andrew Dennison, a board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation physician with an additional subspecialty board certification in brain injury medicine, discusses symptoms and risk factors of a stroke, as well as some therapies and treatments that are typically used in rehabilitation.

Secondary complications are a major health issue for people living with brain and spinal cord injury. Secondary conditions are negative health outcomes that occur as a direct result of a disability. The most common secondary conditions for these patients are pressure sores, respiratory complications, urinary tract infections, spasticity and neuropathic pain.

Today, Angela Beninga, D.O., a staff physiatrist in Shepherd Center’s Multispecialty Clinic and the director of Shepherd Center’s Spinal Cord Injury Day Program, joins us to discuss diagnosis and treatment for common complications post-discharge.

The Andrew C. Carlos MS Institute at Shepherd has extensive experience treating people with multiple sclerosis (MS), suspected MS or related disorders. The MS Institute at Shepherd has treated thousands of people with MS using a wide range of neurological and rehabilitative services. Additionally, Shepherd Center engages in research to improve clinical outcomes and the quality of life for individuals with MS. Today, Dr. Guy Buckle, M.D., MPH, director of neuroimaging research at Shepherd Center, discusses advances in technology and neuroimaging research that aid in the treatment of MS.

Are you a workers' compensation case manager, claims manager or life care planner who are seeking options for their injured client? In this podcast, Heddi Silon, the director of workers compensation at Shepherd Center, discusses the admissions process for patients covered under worker’s compensation.

In this segment of Shepherd Center Radio, we discuss options for patients who need a “tune up,” those who never participated in rehabilitation, or injured workers who have previously participated in rehabilitation and are more than six months post-injury.

Brain injury affects the entire family, not just the injured person, and the support of the family system plays a significant role in recovery.

In this podcast, Tana Hall, a family counselor for the Acquired Brain Injury Program at Shepherd Center, discusses the grieving process and how brain injury impacts the family system. She offers strategies for families to cope with the long-term effects of brain injury.

About 700,000 strokes occur in the United States each year. A stroke can affect a person physically and emotionally, and can affect the way a person thinks (cognition) and acts (behavior). Living with and returning home following a stroke can be daunting, requiring preparation for a patient’s ongoing safety, accessibility and independence.

Listen in as clinical nurse specialist Tiffany LeCroy joins us to discuss stroke education for Shepherd Center patients undergoing rehabilitation in the stroke program, addressing stroke awareness, prevention and how to manage life after a stroke.

Athletes have long thrived at Shepherd Center. Over the past 41 years, Shepherd Center has treated countless patient-athletes from across the country who played high school, college or professional sports. In addition to occupational and physical therapy, patients have access to the largest team of recreation therapy specialists in the nation, as well as to an adaptive sports program that includes competitive teams, sports and health clinics, and outdoor recreation workshops.

Listen in as Dan Dale, SCI Day Program Physical Therapist, explains the rehabilitation process for athletes who sustain spinal cord injuries.

Shepherd Center engages in research to improve clinical outcomes and the quality of life for individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). At the hospital’s MS Rehabilitation and Wellness Research Program, researchers study the effects of rehabilitation and exercise interventions for people with MS, and studies also address vocation and quality of life. Researchers also make a concerted effort to share their findings to people with MS, as well as MS healthcare providers, caregivers and healthcare payers in hopes of optimizing function and quality of life for all people living with MS.

Shepherd Center’s MS research program is unique in that it is truly an integration of clinical and research endeavors. This integrated team, led by Dr. Deborah Backus, PT, Ph.D., FACRM, is comprised of physical and occupational therapists, speech therapists, exercise specialists, physicians and research collaborators from various related fields and institutions, who endeavor to answer meaningful questions that can be translated into clinical practice.

The increasingly widespread use of opioid painkillers for chronic pain has created a public health crisis as many people are abusing these highly addictive medications.

Aiming to reduce the number of opioid prescriptions doctors write, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued guidelines that recommend doctors try pain relievers like ibuprofen before prescribing the highly addictive pills, and that they give most patients only a few days’ supply.

But pain intervention specialists actually have a number of other alternative treatments that may address chronic pain with little or no medication.

Today, Dr. Erik Shaw of Shepherd Spine and Pain Institute addresses the opioid crisis and explains some pain interventions that are helping patients manage their condition without addictive painkillers.