The Bethlen Home Messenger, 2000-2001 (1-4. szám)
2001-09-01 / 4. szám
IXet). W oob ^ctíbítp 5|tg;í)(tg:í)tő them as we have been comforted. He wants us to be an example to them of God's mercy and love. Everyone needs to know that someone out there understands what we are going through. They need to be reminded that God loves them, and that He will always be there for them. They need to know that they aren't the only ones who are going through whatever trouble is in their lives. They need to know that they have someone they can talk to, that won't condemn or judge them; but has an understanding of what they are going through. We know that Jesus was a man without sin. We also know that He was a man of great sorrows and acquainted with grief, but He didn't let His sorrows and grief keep Him from comforting those who were going through similar situations. He always made time to help those who needed to be comforted. We need to let Jesus be our example. We should not be afraid to comfort those in their time of need. When we are comforting others, we are obeying what God commanded us to do in Corinthians. And that command is, TO COMFORT THOSE IN TROUBLE. By Jolán Bailey, Therapy Dept. Manager NATIONAL REHAB WEEK National Rehabilitation Week will be observed September 9-15, 2001. The Bethlen Home has been fortunate to recently add a full time rehabilitation team to meet the needs of our residents. The team consists of Physical Therapy (PT), Occupational Therapy (OT) and Speech Therapy (ST). Physical Therapists are trained to address problems with strength, range of motion, ambulation, and transfers, as well as many other physical limitations due to stroke, neurological conditions, orthopedic problems and a wide variety of other medical problems. Thus, PT is considered an integral part of the rehabilitation process for those residents who have experienced an injury, illness, or an overall decline in their functional abilities. Occupational Therapy is the use of purposeful goal directed activity to prevent or reduce dysfunction relating to life tasks, (self care, work, play/leisure.) OT can focus on upper extremity, hand therapy, splinting, activities of daily living, visual/perceptual retraining and cognitive retraining. OT's goal is to help residents become as independent as possible even when adaptive equipment is necessary to perform the tasks. Speech Therapy deals with improving functional communication skills, increasing cognitive linguistic abilities, and addressing swallowing difficulties. Improving functional communication for the resident varies from dysarthria therapy to increase speech clarity, aphasia therapy to increase receptive/expressive language skills, voice therapy for impaired vocal quality, and augmentative communications training for nonverbal residents. Cognitive linguistic retraining focuses on attention span, memory, sequencing, problem solving, abstract reasoning, etc. Swallowing deficits are addressed through diet modifications, oral motor exercises to increase oral function, neuromuscular re-education via tactile/thermal stimulation, and caregiver training with compensatory feeding strategies. The rehabilitation team now can work closely with nursing to help improve the quality of life our residents enjoy here at The Bethlen Home.
