Rehabilitologist

Specialists of the World Health Organization define rehabilitation (rehabilitation) as a set of measures that must ensure adaptation to new living conditions for people who have any functional disorders that have arisen as a result of diseases and injuries. And is engaged in the implementation of this "set of measures" rehabilitation - a separate area of clinical medicine, in which special doctors - rehabilitologists work.

It should be clarified that the rehabilitator is engaged in medical rehabilitation, and psychological, professional and social rehabilitation is the sphere of activity of other specialists.

Who is a rehabilitologist?

Who is a rehabilitologist? Without exaggeration, we can say: a rehabilitator is a special doctor, which is needed for every patient who has completely or partially lost the ability to perform any functions due to illness, surgery or trauma.

According to the statistics of the same World Health Organization, only as a result of the stroke, almost 30 million people around the world became disabled, that is, they lost the functionality of various systems of the body and the musculoskeletal system. At the same time, one third of them can not do without outside help, and 20% can not move without a stick, crutches or "walkers".

And although after ischemic or hemorrhagic strokes a full restoration of the body's functions is considered impossible, the rehabilitation physician applies all his efforts and applies all available rehabilitation methods in order to restore the person's ability to solve everyday everyday problems independently, to promote the compensatory functions of the body, to prevent the development of pathological processes, associated with loss of mobility.

In solving the problem of limiting normal functions associated with contracture and stiffness of joints, atrophy of tissues, disrupting the work of various organs and systems, tablets alone, that is, exclusively medically, can not be avoided. Here you need the whole range of methods that the rehabilitologist uses, namely: physiotherapy, physiotherapy, massage, reflexology, balneotherapy.

When should I go to a rehabilitation specialist?

Long-term treatment with strict bed rest or prolonged forced staying in a supine position lead to partial muscle atrophy. And this is the case when you should contact a rehabilitologist. Because at the stage of recovery, a properly selected individual rehabilitation course will help restore muscle tone and accelerate metabolic processes in tissues, organs and body systems.

A rehabilitation physician will also help to restore the full volume of movements in joints in case of fractures and strains, relieve pain and swelling after injuries to the musculoskeletal system, improve the condition and increase the level of physical activity after a stroke, paresis or paralysis.

In addition, physical exercises, massage, physiotherapy are useful for those who often complain of headaches and back pain. Address to the rehabilitologist who will give recommendations how to get rid of the above-listed symptoms without any medications. For example, he will direct to the course of kinesitherapy, which allows to strengthen the musculoskeletal system and get rid of herniated intervertebral discs, as well as prolong the remission of many neurological and musculoskeletal diseases.

What tests should I take when I visit a rehabilitation specialist? If there is a referral to a course of recovery after a particular illness or injury, you should have a medical history and the results of previous surveys. When seeking a consultation to improve health, you need to do an ECG, undergo an X-ray and pass a general blood test and a general urine test.

What diagnostic methods does the rehabilitologist use?

The main diagnostic methods used in restorative medicine are fundamentally the same as those adopted in other special areas of clinical medicine. These are radiography, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electromyogram (determination of muscle electrical activity).

Most often the patient after the operation or treatment of the disease in a hospital all the data obtained on the basis of the studies carried out already has a history of the disease. Therefore, what methods of diagnostics the rehabilitologist uses, depends on the nature of the surgical intervention and the underlying disease.

What does the rehabilitator do?

The duties of a rehabilitator, first of all, include a comprehensive objective assessment of the patient's health after completion of therapeutic treatment or surgical intervention in accordance with the established diagnosis. This provides a basis for determining the real possibility of a functional restoration (complete or partial) of a damaged organ or system.

What does the rehabilitation specialist do besides this? On the basis of a comprehensive assessment of a person's condition, a specialist makes a program of medical rehabilitation, which specifies the stages of its implementation and the main methods - the most appropriate and most effective. And for each case this plan is individual.

In addition to determining the total volume and intensity of physical exertion, the rehabilitator must clearly divide the entire rehabilitation process into stages and make a forecast for the development of the adaptive and compensatory capabilities of the patient's body (with a specific disease or trauma).

To date, restorative care is not limited to a complex of exercises for the development of joints or muscles. In the process of rehabilitation of patients, physiotherapists, masseurs, psychologists, speech therapists, nutritionists take part.

What diseases are treated by a rehabilitologist?

However strange it may sound, the rehabilitologist does not deal with the treatment of diseases in the usual sense of the term: his predecessors, specialists in the field of surgery, cardiology, orthopedics, traumatology, neurology, etc., do this. As a rule, the patient gets to the rehabilitator already with the existing consequences of some kind of trauma or after surgical or conservative treatment of a certain disease. It is this that determines what diseases the rehabilitologist is treating.

But the doctor-rehabilitologist helps to recover completely to a person. After all, the key goal of any recovery course is to save the patient from the forced restriction of certain possibilities and to restore the lost functions as completely as possible.

Depending on the nature of the disease, operation or injury, rehabilitation will have a clearly defined direction - orthopedic, neurological and neurosurgical, or cardiological.

Orthopedic rehabilitation is performed after physical trauma, as well as after surgery for various pathologies of the musculoskeletal system and the musculoskeletal system.

Neurological and neurosurgical rehabilitation is performed after traumatization of the brain or spinal cord, after surgical treatment of diseases of the brain and spinal cord, as well as after the treatment of diseases of the peripheral nervous system. Most often in complex neurological rehabilitation need people who have suffered a stroke, paresis or paralysis. And the treatment of complications after a heart attack deals with cardiac rehabilitation, which is also handled by a rehabilitation specialist.

Advices of a rehabilitation physician

"Nothing so exhausts and does not destroy a person, as a prolonged physical inaction." These words belong to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. But under them every rehabilitologist could subscribe.

What are the recommendations of a rehabilitation physician to healthy people? The most important advice is to appreciate and protect your health. But those who are unwell and, moreover, are deprived of the opportunity to walk leisurely through the park, run with children, come to the workplace and do the usual thing, it is difficult to give advice ...

There is such a vascular pathology of the brain and spinal cord - a cavernous. This disease develops slowly and is found out by chance, when a person comes with complaints of headaches, vision impairment, limb weakness and partial loss of sensitivity in them. The most serious complication of cavernoma is a hemorrhage, which leads either to paralysis or to a fatal outcome.

A successful orthopedic surgeon Theodore Rammel from St. Petersburg, Missouri, faced this illness in 2009, and a year later from a hemorrhage of the cavernoma of the spinal cord he was paralyzed: the lower part of the trunk completely disappeared and he was forced to change into an invalid stroller. For more than two years, the course of rehabilitation lasted. And as a result, in the autumn of last year, Dr. Rammel again "got up" to the operating table - in a specially designed wheelchair that can take upright position and keep the fixed human body in it.

Examples when rehabilitation helped people overcome self-pity, improve their well-being and even return to active life very much. The main thing is to set a goal and achieve it through "I can not". A good rehabilitologist can help in this.

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