Inpatient Rehabilitation
Lake Charles Memorial offers Inpatient Rehabilitation with our primary service area encompassing, but not limited to, the southwest Louisiana five parishes of Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, and Jefferson Davis. The intensity of care you receive in our inpatient physical and occupation rehabilitation center will be individualized based upon your medical pre-admission assessment.
Inpatient Rehabilitation encounters patients that suffer injuries from accidents, trauma, strokes or head injuries. As a result, Lake Charles Memorial's Rehabilitation Services has some of the most advanced, real-world physical and occupational therapy technology.
Driving Simulator
Most patients respond very well to medical and therapy interventions leading to a quick return-to-home outcome. However, lingering deficits such as reasoning, reaction time, visual differences and judgment may take longer to approximate previous abilities. Unfortunately, the patient and family may not notice those more subtle deficits which could lead to big problems if the patient gets “behind the wheel” prematurely. In the past, it was left to the patients’ doctors to make a subjective call regarding the question; “am I OK to go back to driving?” The doctor will now have an additional avenue to gain more information and performance data with the Memorial's driving simulator funded by The Foundation at Lake Charles Memorial Health System.
The driving simulator allows therapists to test and demonstrate to patients, families, and physicians the possible remaining patient deficits that could inhibit their safe driving. The simulator experience provides information about reaction time, vision, judgment and safety awareness deficits that might still be present, or that are hopefully “no longer present” after appropriate therapy and re-testing. This results in safety for the patient, family, and community.
Independence Walk
Lake Charles Memorial inpatient rehabilitation has an innovative tool in the quest to get patients back to living the life they once knew. The Meredith Miller Independence Walk located on the second floor in the hospital atrium uses realistic challenges for physical therapy patients that they would face at home every day during their recovery rehabilitation. The goal is to teach the patient how to overcome those challenges in a home and community-like environment in the most comprehensive rehabilitation facility anywhere in Southwest Louisiana.”
Individual therapy stations highlight the walk, such as a grocery store, laundry room, garden tool area, and bedroom. Patients can also learn how to navigate the “getting in and out” of an automobile while remaining indoors on the Independence Walk. Memorial took advantage of empty space on the second floor in the hospital’s atrium, to greatly expand the rehabilitation center.
The project was funded through gifts made to The Foundation at Lake Charles Memorial. Employees themselves stepped in, generously donating $95,000 of their own money towards the project, along with a gift from Joe Miller, Sr., former hospital board member and integral part of the hospital's original construction back in 1952, who named the walk in honor of his late wife, Meredith.
Certified Therapists and Medical Technicians
Memorial's rehabilitation team members provide:
- Physical Therapy
- Occupational Therapy
- Speech-Language Therapy
- Social Work Services
- Mental Health Counselor
- Therapeutic Recreation
- Rehabilitation Nursing
The above services are considered the core of the rehabilitation program and are delivered to the patient in a coordinated team effort.
Consulting services include:
- Audiology
- Chaplaincy
- Diagnostic Radiology
- Driver Evaluation
- Enterostomal Therapy
- Laboratory Services
- Prosthetic/Orthotic
- Respiratory Therapy
- Dietary/Nutrition
- Diabetic Education
- Pharmacy
- Medical Consulting - All Specialties
In addition, the following services may be provided through an arrangement with other agencies:
- Driver Training
- Rehab Counseling
- Work Adjustment
- Transportation
- Special Education/Learning Impairments
- Specialized Services for the Deaf/Blind
- Vocational Evaluation/Rehabilitation Engineering (*Louisiana Vocational Rehab Services)
- Occupational Skills Training
Referrals and appointments to these same services will be made for patients requiring them on an outpatient basis.
For more information contact us today at (337) 494-2663.
