St Luke's Hospital

		Clinical Care
		Inpatient Rehabilitation
		Respite Care
		Supporting Services
		Admissions

Inpatient Rehabilitation

Inpatient Rehabilitation is for patients who require a rehabilitation period longer than that provided by acute hospitals (e.g. Alexandra Hospital, Singapore General Hospital and National University Hospital). St Luke’s Hospital aims to maximize the patient’s function and delay deterioration through rehabilitative therapy so that they can return home as independently as possible. With a team of dedicated physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech therapist, the hospital offers comprehensive daily therapy programmes specially tailored to meet each patient’s medical conditions and specific requirements. These programmes include re-educating skills like walking, transfers, activities of daily living and swallowing.

Aims
The team of therapists aims to:

•	Provide rehabilitative therapy to help patients optimize their physical and functional status.
•	Empower clients to cope with functional changes.
•	Integrate clients to community.
•	Help patients to prevent and slow down their physical and functional deterioration.
•	Promote home safety and self-independency.

Admission Eligibility
St Luke’s Hospital accepts patients with the following profile:

•	Above 40 years old of age
•	All races and religion
•	Medically stable and fit for rehabilitation
•	For patients suffering from stroke, hip fracture, amputations and general deconditioning post surgical / medical conditions

Types of Treatment
Physiotherapy
Speech Therapy
Occupational Therapy

Core Strength and Expertise
The hospital specializes in Neurological and orthopaedic rehabilitation for the elderly patients. Latest rehabilitation equipment e.g. treadmill, bicycles, steppers and body weight harness support are used to assist in the rehabilitation of the patients. A close working relationship among the various rehabilitation professionals in the multi-disciplinary team ensures the delivery of quality care to the elderly patients.

Physiotherapy

The Physiotherapist (PT) will first assess the patient’s functional limitations before coming up with an exercise programme that best meets the patient’s medical conditions. This is to ensure that patients will regain as much of their mobility and function as possible after therapy.

Physiotherapy includes treatment like:

•	Exercises to prevent and reduce joint and muscle stiffness
•	Muscle strengthening programme
•	Retraining of daily activities e.g. turning and getting up in bed, moving from bed to chair.
•	Exercises to improve balance
•	Re-education in walking
•	Endurance training
•	Training of patient’s ability to walk in the community
•	Breathing exercises and methods to prevent retention of mucous secretion
•	General pain management
•	Prescription of walking aids and orthotics as required
•	Caregiver training to facilitate the return of patient back to home care
•	Educate patient on safety issues and home exercises before discharge

Speech Therapy

The Speech Therapist will determine the status of a patient’s specific speech / language deficits and swallowing impairments, so that treatments / recommendations can be tailored according to the patient’s specific requirements. Speech Therapy will strive to optimize the patient’s restoration of functional communication and swallowing skills.

Speech Therapy Treatment comprises of:
A. Speech/Language Therapies

•	Therapy for patient’s inaccuracy of sound/word production due to weakness of lips, tongue, palate and face.
•	Therapy for patient’s inability to produce targeted sounds/words due to thought-movement processing difficulties.
•	Therapy for patient’s language deficits such as word-finding difficulty, or higher language deficits such as breakdown of reasoning skills (e.g. cause and effect, inference, projection into the future).

B. Swallowing Therapy helps to retrain the patient’s swallowing abilities.

•	Swallowing strategies
•	Facilitation techniques (maneuvers/postures)
•	Airway protection
•	Stimulation exercises to strengthen lips, tongue, palate and face
•	Recommendations on type of feeding / diets / consistencies

Occupational Therapy

The Occupational Therapist (OT) will determine how a patient’s physical or cognitive problems are interfering with his or her competence in day-to-day activities (e.g. grooming, toileting, dressing, feeding and showering). With proper Occupational Therapy, patients can restore as much of their ability to function independently in the daily activities as possible.

Occupational Therapy Treatment includes:

•	Individualized assessment is provided to ensure that treatments are tailored to meet every patient's needs.
•	Teaching strategies or skill-based learning to help patients re-learn the ability to manage their day-to-day functions.
•	Instrumental Activities of Daily Living training which includes community mobility where patients are assessed on their ability in taking public transport, marketing, cooking etc.
•	Cognitive rehabilitation teaches patients strategies to cope with difficulties that hamper their day-to-day functions.
•	Aids / adaptive equipment, prescription of wheelchairs / commodes or any assistive/adaptive equipment that would enhance the patient’s ability to function more independently.
•	Caregiver training in terms of physical handling skills e.g. transfer, assisting patient up/down bed and other skills e.g. how to assist the patient in showering / toileting etc.
•	Conducting home assessment to assess and advise patient / family on the potential barrier at home that needs modifications to ensure a safer and more functional set up for patient's needs.