Stroke Rehabilitation Services

Regarding stroke care coordination:

• When you are discharged from one of the Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute units, the stroke care coordinator receives a referral from the unit's care coordinator. The referral is to provide care coordination services for a year after you leave the hospital after your stroke.
• Although not all Allina Health hospitals offer stroke care coordination, if you are interested in this service, please call 612-863-4872 or email heather.odell@allina.com.

As a patient undergoing stroke rehabilitation, you will work with a care team led by physiatrists, who are physicians who specialize in physical medicine and rehabilitation. Team members may include:

• Physicians and nurse practitioners to provide care focused on your rehabilitation and management of complex medical issues and disabilities
• Psychologists to help you cope with emotional, behavioral and intellectual changes caused by stroke.
• Rehabilitation nurses to plan and implement 24-hour care, and focus  on personal care and education for you and your family.
• Rehabilitation unit care coordinators to help manage services provided by all disciplines during a rehab stay and work with you to meet your goals for discharge.
• Social workers to help you and your family cope with personal, family or social situations. They also help coordinate discharge planning.
• Care guides to help you connect with many community resources.
• Physical therapists to address problems with balance, coordination, strength, walking and getting in and out of a chair, bed or car. They can help you learn to use a cane, walker or wheelchair.
• Occupational therapists to help you regain daily living skills, like eating, grooming, dressing, bathing, doing housework and going to the bathroom. They also look at home and work environments and activities to make it easier to participate.
• Speech-language pathologists to treat language and speech problems. They may help you regain thinking, reasoning and remembering skills.
• Therapeutic recreational specialists to help you continue leisure interests and community life.

In addition, your rehabilitation care team may include dietitians, nutritionists, pharmacists, integrative health practitioners, respiratory therapists, chaplains and other health professionals to aid in your rehabilitation and recovery.

As a stroke rehabilitation patient, you may have a need for some of our additional specialized programs.

• VitalStim Therapy is a specialized form of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) to address swallowing problems.
• Balance retraining and vestibular rehabilitation treats imbalance or dizziness.
• Exercises may be done to manage incontinence.
• Partial weight bearing gait therapy is used to help regain the ability to walk. Patients are supported in an upright position to exercise muscles and increase range of motion in a safe environment free from falls.
• Aquatic therapy can help patients return to daily activities more quickly through low impact water exercises.
• Driver Assessment and Training Services can help patients continue driving if it is safely possible.

Advanced technologies to improve muscle strength:

• ABLE Program (Activity-Based Locomotor Exercise) for people with paralysis.
• Constraint-induced movement therapy to help with weakness or paralysis on one side of the body.
• The Hand Mentor robot to help restore range of motion and to strengthen hand and wrist muscles.
• The InMotion 2 Robot for intensive rehabilitation for patients who have limited strength or range of motion in their shoulders, arms and hands.
• Interactive rehabilitation using Nintendo® Wii to help improve strength and endurance by experiencing a virtual environment where you can catch or kick balls, duck to escape danger, or move to avoid an obstacle.
• The Lokomat® treadmill is a robot-assisted device that supports patients in an upright position. Patients are able to move their legs through a normal walking pattern–even if they are unable to move on their own.

Our stroke specialty programs at Abbott Northwestern and United hospitals is the only one in the Twin Cities accredited by the Commission on the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). CARF is an independent national organization that certifies facilities which meet the highest patient care standards.