National Rehabilitation Awareness Week recognizes the importance of rehabilitation in all its forms to help people with disabilities and those recovering from injury and illness live lives of full participation in their communities. This year’s campaign focuses on the power of medical rehabilitation and the benefits of inpatient rehabilitation for recovery and return to school, work, and home. Inpatient rehabilitation usually happens in a hospital setting where patients recovering from serious injuries, illnesses, or surgeries receive intensive intervention from clinicians such as physiatrists, rehabilitation nurses, and physical and occupational therapists, among others.

Research on inpatient rehabilitation may focus on developing new interventions, testing the measures clinicians use to monitor progress toward recovery, and learning what factors have an impact on the effectiveness of inpatient rehabilitation. Here are some of the current NIDILRR grantees who are working in this area:

• The Spinal Cord Injury (SCI), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Burn Model System Centers all collect data on patients during their inpatient recovery. These data are gathered in publicly available databases which researchers can use to understand what makes recovery possible for people with these injuries. Individual centers also conduct research on interventions, outcomes measures, and factors influencing recovery such as:
  • Moss TBI Model System develops protocols, guidelines, and treatment materials for promoting physical activity, maximizing learning in inpatient rehabilitation, and remote delivery of cognitive rehabilitation via telehealth.
  • University of Alabama SCI Model System includes a project to validate the MENTOR tool to describe bowel dysfunction in inpatient rehabilitation setting and facilitate management across the first-year post injury.
  • North Texas Burn Rehabilitation Model System includes a project to study early predictors of functional outcomes after burn injury, examining early clinical hospital events to better understand the effects of early injury and in-hospital events on functional outcomes and risk factors for recovery.
• Foundational Ingredients of Robotic Gait Training for People with Spinal Cord Injury During Inpatient Therapy (FIRST) is conducting research to improve the health and function of people with incomplete SCI by conducting innovative, systematic, and highly focused research examining robotic gait training during inpatient rehabilitation.

Are you interested in research articles, reports, and other publications from the grantee community on this topic? The Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center offers a range of evidence-based information products developed for people with SCI, TBI, and burn injury, their families, and care teams:

• Factsheets, podcasts, and quick research reviews
• Research article abstracts from the Model System Centers

You can also explore abstracts from the wider grantee community in our REHABDATA database:

• Inpatient rehabilitation (general)
• Inpatient rehabilitation and discharge, release, or transition
• Inpatient rehabilitation and robotics
• Inpatient rehabilitation and children

These are just a few examples of searches you can run in our REHABDATA database. Try it yourself or contact an information specialist for assistance in exploring our collection!