Rehabilitation Nurses Help Patients Piece Lives Back Together

When Justin Scott sustained a spinal cord injury due to an automobile accident on his 21st birthday, nurses cared for him day in and day out, offering him support and educating him about his condition during his two-and-a-half month stay at The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research.

Rehabilitation nurses at TIRR play a special role because of the environment in which they work – that of the catastrophically injured and impaired.

“They enter into a true partnership with their patients as well as the interdisciplinary clinical team that manages a patient’s care, all the way from admission to discharge,” said registered nurse Ann Nichols, TIRR’s chief nurse executive. “Our nurses help patients put the pieces of their lives back together. They help our patients reach their optimum physical and psychosocial function given a disability. Together, they often accomplish extraordinary results.”

A spinal cord injury affects many different bodily functions including circulation, metabolism, temperature regulation, nutrition, respiration, bowel and bladder function, and sexuality.

Patients like Justin learn about these bodily changes from TIRR nurses who teach “Readiness and Preparation for Self-Care” classes.

“We found our nurses to be true specialists,” said Sue Scott, Justin’s mother. “I attended many of the classes with Justin, and found them interesting, informative and invaluable. With the medical care we learned to provide Justin, we are prepared for him to have a full life in spite of the injury.”

Sue said the nursing staff constantly provided positive reinforcement for the entire family, assuring them that Justin would eventually be able to go about his normal, daily routine – just in a different way.

Top-notch clinical skills are an important part of the rehabilitation nurse’s job, yet good interpersonal skills are just as important. Because the length of stay at TIRR is usually greater than at an acute-care hospital, the nursing staff has more interaction time with patients and families. They are able to see first-hand the results they help produce. And when patients return to TIRR for a visit, it is the nurses they usually seek out to express their gratitude and share their progress.

“Rehabilitation is an educational process and our nurses are among our most important teachers,” said Sunil Kothari, M.D., attending physician for TIRR’s Brain-Injury and Stroke Program and assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine. “Everything changes after a catastrophic injury or illness. The most ordinary of tasks have to be relearned.”

Kothari said nurses teach patients and their families how to perform tasks such as moving in bed, feeding, going to the bathroom, and bathing.

As part of his brain-injury fellowship training, Kothari spent several weeks with the TIRR nurses.

“Those weeks were among the most valuable and educational parts of my training,” he said.

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