Rehabilitation

1.Overview

The Rehabilitation department provides rehabilitation to those patients who are inpatients by working closely with other departments. We work with departments such as Neurosurgery, Neurology, and Orthopedic Surgery where rehabilitation is an essential part of treatment but also with many other departments such as Dermatology and Palliative Care. We have provided rehabilitation services to more than 3,000 patients annually since 2014 (new patients from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022 is 4,600).
Our department manages diseases and injuries often causing wide range of motor and neurological functions. We have also been treating increasing number of patients who develop disuse syndrome (prolonged inactivity such as when during admission to hospital, leading to the loss of the body’s motor and psychological functions)

2.Policy

Our primary aim is to improve our patients’ quality of life by having our patients at the centre of the team and working closely with the multidisciplinary teams. We also value close collaboration with nurses from all the departments and inpatient wards.
We set up a rehab plan for each patient by actively sharing information among the team and tailoring rehabilitation depending on the nature of the disease.

3.Our Strengths

We Commence Your Rehabilitation Program from Day 1

We commence the rehabilitation program often on the first day of the admission to our hospital for stroke patients by closely collaborating with the Stroke Care Unit founded in 2005. By commencing the rehab early on the day of the hospitalization, we encourage patients to mobilize earlier and allowing early recovery of the motor function. In 2016, the average days of the hospitalization in Stroke Care Unit at NTT Medical Center Tokyo was roughly 21 days (date from April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017)

Our Approach to Patients with Disuse Syndrome

Disuse syndrome is a condition that can adversely affect the activities of daily living, caused by prolonged immobilization leading to muscle weakness, decline in body organ functions and joint contractures. Disuse syndrome is increasingly becoming more common especially among the ageing society.

Prevention of disuse syndrome by intervening at an early stage is important for minimizing the effect of disuse syndrome post-discharge. We therefore start rehabilitation as early as possible by proactively finding patients who are experiencing difficulties in eating and physical activities during their hospital stay and constantly sharing information about patients with our nursing staffs.

We Value Teamwork with Other Departments

We provide rehabilitation to patients prior to undergoing surgeries for patients with wear-and-tear of bones/joint and other sport related injuries by closely collaborating with our orthopaedic teams. The aim is to improve motor function and maintain muscle mass by commencing rehabilitation prior to the surgery, and therefore improve the outcome of the treatment.

We also work with our pain management team by offering rehabilitation program to improve the range of motion for patients by gradually adjusting the level of motion to the level of pain for each patient. We provide rehabilitation programs to improve the quality of life for patients.

Message for Our Patients

The duration of treatment we could offer through rehabilitation is often limited by the time available, given our function as an acute care hospital. With this limitation in mind, we aim to provide satisfactory rehabilitation programs at the early/acute stage of diseases.

We are dedicating ourselves to supporting patients and their families to return to the life of normality and overcoming some of the challenges together with our patients. We are always closely collaborating with nearby rehabilitation hospitals and other rehabilitation services.