Introduction

 

“Rehabilitation is the process of helping a person to reach the fullest physical, psychological, social, vocational, avocational and educational potential consistent with his or her physiologic or anatomic impairment, environmental limitations and desires and life plans.”

It is comprehensive and include prevention and early recognition, as well as outpatient, inpatient and extended care programs. Rehabilitation medicine is based on a holistic and comprehensive approach to medical care, using the combined experience of multiple caregivers. Team approach is critical. A health-care team is defined as a group of health-care professionals from different disciplines who share common values and objectives

 

Rehabilitation medicine encompasses a special body of knowledge and procedural skills to help patients with acute or chronic disease maximize their level of function and independence. The specialty is relatively young but already has proven its clinical practice value and has the ideal training to produce primary care providers for patients with disabilities. It is an exciting, growing specialty that emphasizes prevention and treatment. It is not organ based; it can be either hospital or non-hospital based; and it treats all age groups, which allows the practitioner the maximum flexibility to develop a challenging, dynamic practice.

1.      Rehabilitation Team

  • Physiatrist: the physician – Evaluates the patient, takes details History and Examine patients, assesses the limitations , investigates disease and other functional limitations clinically and also with help of computerized systems in EMG lab, gait lab, balance lab, dynamometry, hand tracker etc.  Formulates a treatment plan with goals of treatment, advises and administers medical, surgical and rehabilitational management which includes drugs, minor procedures like intra-articular injections, epidural injections, phenol blocks and botox therapy , corrective plasters and casts, minor soft tissue surgical procedures. This is done on indoor as well as outdoor patients

    • Physical Therapist: assist the patient in functional restoration, especially for gross motor functions.

  • Occupational Therapist: focuses on functional activities and provides services in performance of daily living activities

  • Prosthetist-Orthotist: responsible for the evaluation, design and fabrication of orthoses (braces) or prostheses (artificial limbs).

  • Psychologist: helps the patient and significant others to prepare psychologically for full participation in rehabilitation

  • Social worker: interacts with the patient, family and the rehabilitation team and assists with the living situations.

  • Vocational counselor: assists the patient in developing and attaining realistic vocational goals.

  • Rehabilitation nurse: specialized in the direct personal care of physically impaired patients.

The Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation was started as a PL480 project funded by the United States of America in the early 1960s. It was taken over by the institute after the project terminated and was named as the Department of Rehabilitation and Artificial Limbs. It was renamed as the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in the mid 1990s.

The department was designated to be the WHO collaborative centre for Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation, for South East Asia Region, from 1994-1998.  

Dr SK Varma (prestigious Dr BC Roy Award winner) was the first faculty to head the department.  He later also took charge of the Chairman Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation (ALIMCO) and was also founder Chairman of the Rehabilitation Council of India.  He held the position of the Medical Superintendent of AIIMS Hospital prior to his superannuation.  It was under his leadership the department enjoyed such a tremendous growth and name.

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