Published: July 26, 2007 08:34 am      

Busy bodies

Hospital therapy unit a busy place

The Navarro Regional Hospital Therapy Department has a staff of 10, each dedicated to the rehabilitation of those in need.

“We see a lot of different kinds of diagnoses,” Director Vicki Arnette said. “People who have back pain, neck pain, strokes, total knee and hip replacements, and broken bones all come in for therapy. We have a very busy department.”

The therapy department accepts a wide range of injuries and provides physical, speech and occupational therapy to those in need. Yet, for a patient to be accepted into the care of the therapy department, it literally has to be on doctor’s orders.

“Our clients must have an order from their doctor,” Arnette said. “After they get that order they contact us and we start their therapy.”

Once accepted into the program, the therapists begin a four-week therapy threatment involving different rehabilitation techniques in order to help get their patients back to original or near-original healthiness.

“Some times it is a s little less and sometimes it is more,” Arnett said. “We use a lot of different techniques that all center around exercise, teaching of health safety, and standard therapy models.”

The staff of the therapy department is highly trained and all have years of therapeutic experience behind them. Each therapist strives for an overall effective rehabilitation of their clients and use the modalities they have learned to nurse their patients back to health.

“The therapists that we have all have many years of experience,” Arnette said. “They have been here in this facility for a long time and they are familiar with the equipment and location. Our staff provides caring, professional help to their patients.”

With each patient that comes in, the therapy department gains more experience and learns from past attempts. Not all of the staff’s rehabilitation attempts are successful, but the program maintains a high recovery rate and strives to ensure its patients’ well-being.

“There is always going to be a a chance that everything is not going to get better,” Arnette said, “but almost all of our patients recover.”

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Chase Springer may be contacted via e-mail at chase@corsicanadailysun.com