LASCI Hosts Motivational Program for MetroHealth Rehabilitation Institute’s SCI Peer Group

In addition to paralysis and loss of sensation below the level of injury, spinal cord injury affects several body systems. The physical and emotional impact is devastating, and the resulting complications demand the intervention of a specialized rehabilitation team.

That’s why the MetroHealth Rehabilitation Institute of Ohio’s CARF Accredited Spinal Cord Injury Program offers patients individualized treatment by a team of clinicians specializing in spinal cord injury. After a comprehensive evaluation, the treatment team, patient, and family collaborate to set a realistic treatment plan and goals to return patients to their maximum level of independent functioning.

LASCI founder Bert Burns, a C-6 quadriplegic, visited with the MetroHealth Rehab SCI Peer Support Group on Monday 21, 2012 as part of a free motivational program that we offer to assist people with independence and goal setting after SCI.  UroMed representative Vicki Sizer also attended the event with Bert to help answer questions that participants may have had following the program.

Bert answers questions during the MetroHealth SCI Peer Support Group meeting.

During his presentation, Bert covered many of the topics that he is frequently asked questions on, including:

• Work/School
• Dating
• Sexuality
• Marriage
• Children
• Sports
• Bladder/Bowel Management

If you’d like to attend one of Bert’s upcoming engagements, please visit our website at www.uromed.com.  And feel free to contact us to invite Bert to participate in your program.

We’re pretty sure Pepsi, the service dog, was more interested in the snack bar than he was in Bert!

About MetroHealth Rehabilitation Institute
The MetroHealth Rehabilitation Institute of Ohio has a number of programs, support services, and clinics to help patients with spinal cord injuries improve their functional abilities and adjust to a change in lifestyle. They serve patients with all levels and severity of spinal cord injury. Their designated 29-bed SCI/Multiple Trauma Unit is home to a program that treats more than 200 SCI patients annually. To provide continuity of care, patients with spinal cord injury are followed through outpatient services and programs.  Learn more at: http://www.metrohealth.org.

The MetroHealth SCI program offers the following specialized services:

• Easy Street environment
• ADL apartment
• Community re-entry
• Driver rehabilitation
• Adaptive equipment/assistive technology training
• ERGYS – electrical stimulation bicycle ergometer
• Body-weight support system
• Computer lab
• Academic and vocational re-entry
• Home evaluation
• Northeast Ohio Regional Spinal Cord Injury System
• Spasticity management
• Wheelchair mobility, seating, and positioning
• Bowel/bladder management – mrodynamics
• Sexual dysfunction counseling
• Functional electrical stimulation
• Tendon transfer

Skin care – wound management

 

UroMed offers free LASCI motivational events like this one at MetroHealth Rehab as a means of giving back to the community that we serve.

The MetroHealth Spinal Cord Injury program interdisciplinary team may consist of all or some of the following:

• Physiatrists
• Rehabilitation nurses
• Speech-language pathologists
• Physical therapists
• Occupational therapists
• Case managers
• Therapeutic recreation specialists
• Dieticians
• Rehabilitation psychologists
• Social workers
• Vocational rehabilitation specialists
• Art therapists
• Music therapists

Other professionals who may be involved in the program include:

• Consulting physicians/specialties (i.e. neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, neurologists, pulmonary medicine, infectious disease, urologists, pharmacists)
• Spiritual/pastoral care providers
• Respiratory therapists

Paraplegic Karen Roy’s Busy Yet Wonderful Life as a Social Worker

Karen Roy serves on the board of the Brain Injury Association of Louisiana.

Editor’s Note: You’re not beaten until you give up. Although you may not know where you’re going or what you’ll eventually become, as long as you continue to improve and try more than yesterday, good things start happening. Karen Roy from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has proved that statement. A medical social worker today at Neuro Medical Center/Rehabilitation Hospital, Karen Roy has taken a journey to arrive at this position that demonstrates the courage of an individual and the never-say-never attitude that results in a successful life. Part 5 of a 5 part series.

After I received my master’s degree in social work, I worked with pediatric and geriatric patients. Then I went into hospital and medical social work and focused on counseling and case management.Phillip is an engineer and designs safety systems that prevent chemical and oil plant destruction. Apparently I’ve married a man very much like my father.

[L to R]: UroMed’s John Perez; TOURO’s Paul Genco; NeuroMed’s Karen Roy & LASCI founder Bert Burns

I work at the hospital with stroke victims, brain injury and spinal injury patients. I definitely think that my being in a wheelchair helps me in my line of work, because I’ve actually done what many of my patients are beginning to learn how to do.

I’ve got a great family; today my children are 18, 14 and 12. One of the problems with having teenagers is that my life at home isn’t very different from work. At the hospital, I’m a troubleshooter. I am the one everyone calls when a patient has a problem. The same thing goes when I am at home with my family. My husband is more passive, so I feel like I’m the main problem solver.

However, every once in a while, he’ll solve the problems. I tell my children, when they want to be tough, “You may be strong, but I’m stronger.” I also say, “I’m not your friend; I’m your mother. You don’t have to like me. I really don’t like you right now, but you’re going to do what I say.”

When someone asks me what’s in the future for me right now, I say, “Tuition.”  I look forward to pay raises in my future, and I hope travel a lot in the future. I love social work, and I plan to do it as long as I can. At some point, I’d like to exercise more. Right now my biggest dream is to get my kids through high school, and then we’ll start thinking about college. I’ve got a great life, a great family and a great job. I’m just taking life as it comes.  

The Roy’s recent Christmas card. The happiness is apparent in everyone’s eyes!

About the Author: For the last 12 years, John E. Phillips of Vestavia, Alabama, has been a professional blogger for major companies, corporations and tourism associations throughout the nation. During his 24 years as Outdoor Editor for “The Birmingham Post-Herald” newspaper, he published more than 7,000 newspaper columns and sold more than 100,000 of his photos to newspapers, magazines and internet sites. He also hosted a radio show that was syndicated at 27 radio stations; created, wrote and sold a syndicated newspaper column that ran in 38 newspapers for more than a decade; and wrote and sold more than 30 books. Learn more at http://www.nighthawkpublications.com