Full Course Description

Stroke Rehabilitation Master Class: Best Practices for Rapid Functional Gains and Improved Outcomes

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Analyze the latest advances in stroke recovery and their implications for therapy.
  2. Determine strategies for identifying the root causes of post-stroke impairments faster.
  3. Integrate effective interventions that can be used immediately to improve function, multitasking, balance, gait, strength, flexibility and mobility.
  4. Combine multiple interventions more effectively for better results, including dual task interventions, NDT, constraint induced movement therapy, balance and gait training, exercise, and functional activities.
  5. Design effective, innovative plans of care for a wide range of neurological impairments.
  6. Apply the assessments and interventions discussed in this seminar to a series of interactive case scenarios.

Outline

Hot Topics and Innovations in Stroke Rehabilitation

  • How your patients can benefit from cutting edge research
Upgrade Your Assessment and Clinical Reasoning Skills
  • Today’s best evaluations for:
    • Sensory and coordination
    • Visual changes
    • Synergies and motor recovery
    • Weakness and reflexes
    • Muscle tone and flaccidity
    • Perception and cognition
    • Postural control
    • Gait, balance and coordination
  • Hands-on Lab
Revolutionize Your Rehab Toolbox
  • Effective techniques you can use immediately to:
    • Ignite neuroplasticity for breakthrough results
    • Restore functional strength more quickly
    • Enhance function and multi-tasking ability
    • Reduce spasticity
    • Restore limb use
    • Resolve impairments from a more functional, person-centered perspective
    • Improve transfers with less strain
    • Prevent falls with effective gait training
    • Improve strength, balance and coordination
    • Design a more effective home program
    • Intensify therapy safely and effectively
    • Re-engage difficult or depressed patients
  • Hand-on Lab
Combine Techniques More effectively for Better Outcomes
  • Practice integrating:
    • Constraint-induced movement therapy
    • Task-specific training
    • Dual task interventions
    • Neuro-developmental Treatment (NDT)
    • Neuro-handling techniques
    • Balance and gait training
    • Postural control
    • PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation)
    • Functional activities
    • Therapeutic exercise
    • Technological advances
    • Neuroplasticity-building interventions
  • Hands-on Lab
Design Advanced, Innovative Plans of Care for Your Patients
  • Comprehensive treatment strategies for specific impairments, including:
    • Ataxia
    • Hemiparesis
    • Neglect
    • Pusher syndrome
    • Spasticity
    • Subluxation
    • Gait and mobility
    • Decreased sensation
    • Reduced flexibility
    • Muscular weakness
    • Timing/coordination
  • Hand-on Lab
Case Studies: Put Knowledge to Practice
  • Case study 1: Correctly select the root cause of impairment
  • Case study 2: Apply advanced gait training and multitasking techniques
  • Case study 3: Re-engage a difficult or depressed patient
  • Case study 4: Overcome barriers to effective strategy implementation
  • Case study 5: Adjust your plan of care for technological advances
Don’t Leave the Money on the Table!
  • Coding and billing updates
  • Justify therapy with the right progress measures
  • Avoid denials and audits with these tips

Target Audience

  • Physical Therapists
  • Physical Therapist Assistants
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Occupational Therapy Assistants
  • Therapy Directors
  • Nurses
  • Nurse Practitioners
  • Physician Assistants

Copyright : 10/04/2019

Stroke Rehab for Patients who “Push”: Management Strategies for a Unique Patient Population

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Analyze current literature regarding suggested pathology of “pusher syndrome”
  2. Determine common characteristics and functional presentation of a patient who “pushes”
  3. Develop a skill set for understanding normal movement as well as executing task analysis for assessments of impairments limitations
  4. Analyze the criteria critical in categorizing the “pusher” patient as a low, mid, or high-level “pusher”
  5. Determine appropriate treatment interventions for the low, mid, and high-level “pusher” patient to specifically improve noted activity limitations
  6. Practice supporting and positioning techniques that enhance safely for the clinician and patient
  7. Demonstrate progressions of interventions to reduce impairments and lessen activity limitations to maximize participation for each patient with “pusher syndrome”

Outline

ICF MODEL AND ROLE IN ASSESSMENT AND TREATMENT

  • ICF Models guide to clinical reasoning
  • Levels of ICF definitions and examples
  • Correlation with assessment, prognosis and treatment planning

PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF “PUSHING”

  • Role of vestibular system
  • Localization of lesions correlating with “pushing”
  • Thalamic lesions and “pushing”
  • Role of graviceptive systems
  • Best support for occurrence of “pushing”

COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF “PUSHERS”

  • Alignment faults (trunk, head, pelvis, femur)
  • Movement dysfunction
  • Midline deficits
  • Other (sensory loss, visual, neglect, cognition)

ASSESSMENT TOOLS

  • Tests to confirm presence of “Pushing”
  • Outcome measures
  • Role of upper and lower trunk assessment

TASK-ANALYSIS, HYPOTHESIS DRIVE APPROACH

  • Why use this framework for clinical reasoning
  • What is the framework
  • How it guides tasks assessment and guides treatment choices
  • How to execute a task analysis
  • Neuroplasticity and directing treatment choices
  • Motor control and motor learning theories on set-up and progression

TREATMENT SET-UP FOR SUCCESS (REDUCE RISK, IMPROVE SAFETY, IMPROVE OUTCOMES)

  • Choosing a position for treatment
  • Align patient for best results
  • Activate muscles in coordinated sequenced fashion to mimic functional demands
  • Rehabilitation of function
  • Compensation or Recovery?

TREATMENT FOR THE LOW, MID AND HIGH-LEVEL “PUSHER” 

  • Primary characteristic for each level
  • Starting point and progression
  • Functional re-education considerations
  • Use of objects, adjunct, and equipment in treatment

Target Audience

  • Physical Therapists
  • Physical Therapist Assistants
  • Occupational Therapy
  • Occupational Therapy Assistants
  • Exercise Physiologists
  • Physicians
  • Insurance reviewers

Copyright : 11/07/2018

Addressing Patient Behavior by Brain Lesion Site: Clinical Tools & Strategies Specific to Patient Deficits

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Categorize the anatomy and function of lobes of the brain as they apply to behavioral control.
  2. Inspect the neurophysiology of memory and effect of fear/anger upon new learning and memory.
  3. Analyze the effect of traumatic and non-traumatic injuries upon cognitive centers.
  4. Analyze the connection between neurotransmitters and the communication system within the brain.
  5. Evaluate the optic system and lesion locations that affect engagement and accuracy in therapy.
  6. Employ simple neuroanatomy-based techniques to rapidly de-escalate stress for patients and caretakers.
  7. Assess neuro-behavioral barriers that impact new learning.

Outline

Neuroanatomy And The Impact On Cognitive Processing

  • Basic neuronal anatomy
  • Brain wiring: Association, projection, and commissural fiber tracts
  • Brain lobes locations and ties to cognitive processes
  • Cerebellum and impact upon cognition
  • Case Study 1: Jacob’s anxiety and how pacing the halls become therapeutic
Optic System And Visual Perception
  • Optic constructs, anterior-posterior fiber tracts
  • Visual cortices and unique roles in visual processing
  • Effect of tumors, shear injuries, CVA lesions upon visual processing
  • Case study 2: Why can’t my patient just see the whole worksheet like I do?
  • Group Exercise: Review of vision diagnostics by discipline (PT/OT/SLP)
How Neurotransmitters Drive The Bus
  • Internal communication systems within the brain
  • Dopamine pathways and effects on cognition and reward systems
  • Serotonin pathways and mood modulations
Executive Functions Of The Frontal Lobe
  • The Cognitive Pyramid and moving patients upward
  • Skull anatomy and effects of shear injury
    • Shear injury as it affects anxiety and behavioral health
  • Therapy implications for PT/OT/SLP
  • Group Exercise: Review of executive function diagnostics by discipline (PT/OT/SLP)
Communication And The Left Hemispheric Functions
  • Broca’s vs. Wernike’s area
  • Function of the accurate fasciculus upon communication
Spatial Processing And The Right Hemispheric Functions
  • Neurophysiology vs neuropathology, understanding patients’ nonverbal challenges
  • Inferential language and social cognition
  • A sense of time and spatial organization revealed
The Hidden Processors-Thalamic Influences
  • Auditory pathways and neuroanatomy
  • Thalamic engagement on sensory information
  • Modulation of sleep and vigilance

Memory: How The Hippocampus And The Amygdala Partner

  • Memory processes
  • Memory types: Right vs left hippocampal functions
  • Hypoxia and anoxia upon memory function
  • Sleep and memory consolidation, effect of exercise on memory structures
  • Amygdala’s influence upon fear-based learning and hijacking executive control
  • Case study 3: Nile’s hypoxia and long term rehab outcomes
Recovery From Acceleration/Deceleration Injuries: Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI)
  • Microanatomical features of DAI
  • CTE: Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
  • Where medications have failed
Agitation Management Strategies
  • Review how working knowledge of the Rancho Los Amigos levels and practitioner tips can avoid confrontation
  • Learn trick of the trade for avoiding escalation
  • Confabulation and denial – addressing the elephant in the room
Enriching Patient And Clinician Relationships
  • The science behind mediations and mindfulness
  • Reigning in the runaway situation

Target Audience

  • Physical Therapists
  • Physical Therapist Assistants
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Occupational Therapy Assistants
  • Speech-Language Pathologists
  • Certified Brain Injury Specialists
  • Recreational Therapists
  • Nurses
  • Nurse Practitioners
  • Social Workers

Copyright : 06/07/2019

Igniting Neuroplasticity after Stroke: Breakthroughs for Improving Motor Recovery

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Analyze the latest research on neuroplasticity and its implications for stroke rehabilitation
  2. Apply steps for improving task assessment, intervention selection, progressions, and ultimately functional outcomes, using key concepts related to neuroplasticity, motor control, and motor learning
  3. Evaluate interventions related to compensation and recovery

Outline

Review the latest research on neuroplasticity and its implications for stroke rehabilitation

  • Describe moto control and motor learning theories
  • Introduce 5 Stages of Trask Performance
  • Correlate deficits in task performance to identified impairments
  • Develop framework for treatment progression based on 5 Stages of Task performance
Identify steps for improving task assessment, intervention selection, progressions, and ultimately functional outcomes, using key concepts related to neuroplasticity, motor control, and motor learning
  • Define recovery and compensation
  • Identify factors that guide our decisions to move toward interventions for recovery versus compensation
    • Premorbid ability
    • Stroke prognostic factors
    • Stage in recovery
    • Process where intervention is occurring
    • Insurance/LOS limitations
  • Provide evidence for recovery over compensation early in the rehab process
  • Promote inclusion of compensation and recovery within treatment progression

Target Audience

  • Physical Therapists
  • Physical Therapist Assistants
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Occupational Therapy Assistants
  • Athletic Trainers
  • Massage Therapists

Copyright : 07/27/2018