Inpatient Rehabilitation Program

Our Brain Injury Program helps children with brain injuries or other neurological conditions develop the functional skills they need to return home and to the community as quickly as possible. We provide an individualized, progressive treatment plan to help them succeed and reach their full potential.

Learn more about our Brain Injury Program

Our burn rehabilitation services address everything from partial surface burns to full and deep injuries. We provide individualized burn rehab—such as self-care, dressing and wound care—to help children gain the confidence and skills to regain function and independence. Therapy is a vital part of the physical, emotional, social and functional rehabilitation of our patients.

Our burn rehab specialists help children regain the ability to perform everyday activities, such as going to school. Our comprehensive care includes:

• Behavioral management
• Compression garments for scar management
• Occupational therapy
• Pain management
• Physiatry
• Physical therapy
• Pulmonology therapy, including respiratory therapy
• Rehabilitation nursing
• Speech-language pathology for oral burns
• Therapeutic recreation

We provide specialized care for children and young adults who have a spinal cord injury and a corresponding brain injury, known as dual diagnosis. Patients with a dual diagnosis may experience physical and mental complications. They often need therapy to regain strength and mobility while working on possible learning and memory impairments.

Treatment for pediatric dual diagnosis can be extremely challenging because a child’s growth and development has to be factored into his healthcare. To help patients return home with the highest possible level of function, our multidisciplinary team takes a comprehensive, aggressive and individualized approach that applies age-appropriate treatments.

Team members may include:

• Board-certified pediatric and subspecialty doctors, including pediatric physiatrists
• Registered rehabilitation nursing staff
• Physical, occupational, speech, recreation and music therapists
• Neuropsychologists
• Rehabilitation case managers
• Social workers
• Child life specialists
• Certified teachers
• Chaplains
• Vocational rehabilitation counselors
• Volunteers

We provide specialized, intensive rehabilitation therapy to children who are medically stable and demonstrating a disorder of consciousness following a brain injury. Children receive medical care and therapy to increase responsiveness and function, and families receive extensive training in order to care for the child at home.

Board-certified physiatrists lead a multidisciplinary treatment team that may include gastroenterologists, pulmonologists, neurologists, neuropsychologists, pediatric psychologists and neurosurgeons. We provide three hours of therapy to patients each day, allowing time for rest and structured activity. This allows for ample interaction and supervision with their doctors and therapists.

It’s important for parents to be involved with their child’s care once he leaves the hospital, so our specialists teach you what you need to know and do for at-home care, including:

• Medicine administration: Why a medicine is prescribed and how to obtain, store, measure and dispense it
• Nutritional management: Why certain foods are recommended and how to feed your child in the healthiest way possible
• Bowel and bladder care: How to keep your child dry, including how to change diapers and provide toilet retraining
• Respiratory care: How to manage the devices that keep your child breathing, such as ventilators and tracheotomies
• Safety management and care: How to keep your child healthy, infection-free and safe at home
• Community education and reintegration: How to include your child in family life, such as taking trips, going to appointments and attending community events
• Transfer and mobility: How to move, position and travel with your child, as well as how to operate and manage a wheelchair
• Skin care: How to care for your child’s skin and prevent problems such as bedsores
• School re-entry and advocacy: How to help your child adjust and function at school, and what you should know about government requirements for educational support
• Diagnosis and recovery: What you need to know about your child’s diagnosis and what you can expect during recovery

We provide specialized rehabilitation for children and teens with spinal cord conditions to help them regain independence and cope with future challenges.

Learn more about our Spinal Cord Injury Program

Our Cardiac Rehabilitation Program helps those with congenital (present at birth) heart defects and acquired heart disease increase endurance, regain strength, and reduce future health risks. One of only a few of its kind in the country, the pediatric program centers on exercise, education and functional skills. It’s suitable for children and teens with a history of cardiac disorders, such as heart transplant complications, cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias and cardiac arrest.

We provide care for patients from birth to age 21 in all rehabilitation phases—acute, inpatient, day rehab and outpatient—and from early intervention therapy to at-home maintenance. We use age-appropriate methods to help patients achieve developmental milestones and return to active lives.

Our cardiac care team is led by board-certified physiatrists and pediatric cardiologists and may include staff and specialists such as:

• Physical and occupational therapists
• Speech-language pathologists
• Neuropsychologists
• Psychologists
• Child life specialists
• Social workers
• Nurse practitioners
• Physician assistants
• Dietitians
• Rehabilitation nurses
• Case managers
• Hospital teachers

Our child life specialists provide quality care for your child, as well as your family, throughout the hospital stay. This can include educating your child about illness, treatment, and surgery, as well as preparing any siblings for the hospital visit. The specialists provide support during procedures and attempt to normalize their environment through age-appropriate play and group activities.

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Our Driver Rehabilitation Program assesses a teen's ability to safely learn to drive or return to driving after an injury or illness that affects cognitive function, vision or physical abilities. It includes clinical and behind-the-wheel evaluations performed by a certified driver rehabilitation specialist.

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Patients may also participate in group therapy and peer support groups with other patients facing similar challenges and goals. These groups allow patients to talk about their injuries or illnesses and support each other during their stays. In addition, we connect our patients and families with former patients of similar age and diagnosis; this gives our families mentors to help throughout their rehab journey.

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Music therapy uses musical activity—such as creating, singing, playing or listening to music—to strengthen the physical, emotional, cognitive and social abilities of patients as part of the healing process.

Music therapy at Children’s helps patients:

• Manage pain
• Express emotions
• Improve thinking, attention, alertness, memory, and vocal and verbal expression
• Develop social skills and relate to others
• Improve movement and physical strength
• Develop the ability to speak and communicate
• Relieve stress through relaxation
• Decrease pain or anxiety during medical procedures

Our music therapists observe the way your child participates in activities to learn about his musical preferences, interest level and history. Your child’s therapist will use this information to develop a customized music therapy plan, which may involve treatment individually, in peer groups, with the family, or in other therapy sessions. During therapy, your child might play musical instruments, sing or hum, or listen, move or exercise to music. He may also write or compose music or work with multimedia music resources.

The conditions we treat with music therapy are:

• Burns
• Cognition and memory impairment
• Decreased mobility
• Developmental delays
• Learning disabilities
• High-risk neonatal circumstances
• Long-term medical illness
• Physical injuries and disabilities
• Speech-language problems

Occupational therapy teaches your child to do things for himself, like feeding, drinking and going to the bathroom. This includes working on physical, cognitive and vision problems that may have come from your child’s injury or illness.

We offer behavioral health services provided by licensed pediatric psychologists with specialized experience in treating patients with rehabilitation needs. The services provided by our pediatric psychologists include, family education and training, individual one-on-one counseling for your child, and behavioral health support provided alongside our rehabilitation therapists. The goal of these services is to address behavioral health needs of your child, to provide holistic care, and support all aspects of your child’s recovery. Families are also provided with outpatient behavioral health referrals for treatment in the community following discharge.

Children's Canines For Kids animal assisted therapy program helps ease anxiety and promotes shorter recovery times. Canine Assistants trains our service dogs to provide therapy, hope and healing by doing everything from giving loving support and company during therapy. The therapy dogs in our rehabilitation program are trained to assist in the therapeutic experience by helping patients move, communicate, and provide emotional support.

Physical therapy is an important part of our program. Physical therapists help to improve your child’s muscle tone, balance, strength, endurance and movement through exercise and activity. These skills help your child to become more mobile.

We have three gyms, including one specifically designated for teens, featuring age appropriate environments to encourage and motivate patients. Our gyms include specialized equipment for patients of all ages and sizes. Therapists incorporate age-appropriate games and activities, during therapeutic exercises and practice to keep our patients engaged and motivated, which helps each patient achieve the best recovery and outcome possible. Many pieces of equipment that are located in our gyms on the rehabilitation floor are also in our Center for Advanced Technology and Robotics.

Team members will create an individualized treatment plan for your child or teen that incorporates a variety of equipment and therapy techniques to address their condition. As they progress through therapy and regain strength and function, we’ll introduce new equipment and exercises to help them continue to improve.

Our dedicated team of certified teachers help patients and families navigate the process of communicating with the patient’s school during their stay, as well as facilitate the process of returning to school, advocating for any needs the child may have.

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Our speech therapists treat speech, language, thinking, and feeding or swallowing problems.

We provide services for teens who require care due to accidents, illnesses or congenital (present at birth) defects. Our therapists help teens develop the skills they need to become independent adults.

Learn more about our teen rehabilitation services

Children’s therapeutic recreation not only helps patients resume the activities they enjoyed before their hospitalization, it also introduces them to new activities. Playing in this way can be a profoundly healing experience.

Our therapists use a variety of methods and activities to keep children and teens involved and engaged in their recovery:

• Individual treatment sessions give patients one-on-one interactions that improve their strength and endurance through active, healthy leisure choices.
• Group treatment sessions encourage social interaction among peers.
• Community outings: We also offer patients and families the opportunity to go on outings to a variety of locations in the community. Therapists coordinate community outings, which involve parents and caregivers, to match the specific needs of each patient. These events help patients discover their abilities, improve their functional independence, and learn new skills that will prepare them to return to school and other activities. A recreation therapist, a pediatric rehab nurse and other members of the therapy team participate in these outing to answer questions, provide assistance and ensure that caregivers feel comfortable in the community before their children are discharged from the hospital. These outings allow patients and families the opportunity to practice all they have learned during rehab and prepare for returning home.
• Therapeutic play allows patients to adjust to their surroundings and have fun as they participate in inpatient rehabilitation.
• Our Adaptive Sports Program helps those with disabilities find sports activities they enjoy and can play safely, such as wheelchair basketball, quad rugby or power soccer.
• Assistive technology can allow children and teens to enjoy a variety of activities and gain independence using devices such as adaptive video game controllers, sports equipment, fishing poles, toys, switch-operated digital cameras, bowling ramps and others.