Inpatient Acute Rehabilitation

What is Inpatient Acute Rehabilitation?

If you’re healing from medical treatment for a spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, or other disabling condition, acute inpatient rehabilitation helps you restore function and regain your independence.

The experience is designed to help you reach your goals and prepare you and your family for your return home.

UR Medicine's Approach

By continuing your care at UR Medicine, you’ll work with rehabilitation professionals who are familiar with your condition and are also experts in the resources you will need at home.

UR Medicine offers specialized programs for specific conditions, such as brain and spinal cord injuries. Our providers are uniquely qualified to treat these particular types of injuries.

We have staff with extensive experience and training, including fellowship-trained physicians and Certified Rehabilitation Registered Nurses—designations reserved for the highest-level experts in rehabilitative care. They’re also dedicated to the emotional well-being of patients.

After discharge, you can receive outpatient care at one of our many convenient facilities.

Deciding What Type of Rehab is Right for You

Acute Inpatient Medical Rehabilitation, or hospital-based rehabilitation, is appropriate for patients who will benefit from an intensive, interdisciplinary rehabilitation program. Patients receive occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy by specially trained physicians and nurses. In addition, we offer recreational therapy, misc therapy, neuropsychology, rehabilitation psychology, and chaplaincy. In contrast, subacute rehabilitation as a skilled nursing facility is less intense than acute rehabilitation.

To be eligible for Acute Rehabilitation at Strong Memorial Hospital, a person must:

Be at least 6 years of age and over, and patients 5 years or younger will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Be referred by a physician
Have significant functional deficits that require a multidisciplinary treatment team
Have medical and nursing needs that require close daily oversight
Be able to tolerate 3 hours of therapy 5 days per week
Have the potential to achieve rehabilitation goals in a reasonable amount of time
Have adequate social support and have the potential to return to a community setting
Not require ventilator support or cardiac monitoring
Be evaluated by a rehabilitation physician to verify admission criteria has been met

Consulting Service

In addition to providing care on the Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit, our physicians are available for consults to assist patients early in their recovery. Some reasons to consult us early during the hospital stay include:

Brain injury/stroke recommendations (management of agitation, sleep-wake cycle regulation, medications for cognitive/communication deficits, addressing emotional adjustments)
Spasticity management
Neurogenic bowel and bladder from brain or spinal cord injuries
Counseling patients before and/or after amputations and management of phantom limb pain following surgery
Educating patients and family members on functional prognosis for recovery

Regardless of the next step following a patient’s hospital stay, our rehabilitation team can help provide education to patients and family members on the recommended next steps in the rehabilitation process and facilitate outpatient follow-up with our rehabilitation physicians and therapists. Our rehabilitation team is committed to helping patients through the continuum of care from the intensive care unit to living well in the community!

Patient Stories

Spinal Cord Injury Survivor

From the time I was first injured and came to Strong Memorial Hospital for my rehabilitation, it has been a place for continuous life resources. Not just the days I spent in the hospital but, every day since then. They are truly experts in the treatment of spinal cord injury, both physically and emotionally. They helped me to work through the devastating consequences of my injury and taught me how to manage these new changes. The entire team was supportive, knowledgeable and enthusiastic about my recovery.

What Sets Us Apart?

UR Medicine’s Acute Inpatient Rehabilitation Program is the most established rehabilitation program in the region.

The department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation gained accreditation from CARF (Commission on the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities) and the Magnet Recognition Program (the gold standard of nursing), becoming the first of its kind in upstate New York to be integrated directly with both a Level 1 Trauma Center and a Joint Commission-certified Comprehensive Stroke Center. These designations reflect higher patient satisfaction and better patient outcomes.

As part of a leading academic medical center, we track our patients’ results, including functional improvement, level of satisfaction, and return to home. Our results rank among the highest in New York State.

Our Acute Inpatient Rehabilitation Program offers advanced technology to help patients make progress in their recovery. Our equipment includes:

Robot technology that allows patients to practice movement.
A computerized therapy system to improve cognitive and visual performance.
A SafeGait, which is a ceiling-mounted body-weight support and fall protection system to help patients practice walking, improve strength, and overcome balance concerns.
An apartment provides an environment for patients to practice activities of daily living.
A car in our therapy gym allows patients and family members to practice transferring in and out of a vehicle.

Because we’re a nationally prominent academic medical center, our physicians remain on the cutting edge of medical treatment. We stay up to date on the latest techniques and research that is advancing rehabilitation care.