You're calling your tyranny of low expectations a miracle, no it is a complete failure. You didn't get them 100% recovered! No point in going there if they have such low rehab recovery.
'Miracle workers': Rehab center has been getting people back on their feet for 30 years
WINCHESTER — Cathy Kelly wouldn't be who she is today had it not been for Winchester Rehabilitation Center.
On Sept. 11, the Winchester resident suffered a stroke that damaged the right side of her brain.
"I got up in the morning to go to the bathroom and the left side of my body was paralyzed," Kelly said last week in a telephone interview.
Four days later, the 67-year-old was transferred from Winchester Medical Center to Winchester Rehabilitation Center, both of which are operated by Valley Health.
Kelly was admitted to one of the rehab facility's 30 patient beds and underwent several hours worth of intense physical and speech therapy every morning and afternoon.
"When you're telling somebody like me that never exercised or went to a gym that I'm going to have to work out that many hours a day, it's very difficult," she said. "But the people there are wonderful. They are happy, they have great senses of humor and they keep you going. You don't even realize you're working out."
When Kelly left Winchester Rehabilitation Center on Oct. 11, exactly one month after the stroke had paralyzed her left side and significantly slurred her speech, "I was talking, walking with a walker, dressing myself, using my left arm and carrying a debt of appreciation I will never be able to repay."
On Tuesday, the members of Kelly's therapy team — physical therapist Courtney Sansone, occupational therapist Heba Frye and speech pathologist Marysia Adler — sat down with therapy team leader Jennifer Hartstein and three Winchester Rehabilitation Center administrators to talk about how the facility at 333 W. Cork St., which is celebrating its 30th year of service, gets people with neurological and mobility hindrances back on their feet in a relatively short period of time.
"We are hospital-level rehab, which is ... the most aggressive, most comprehensive rehab program," said Jennifer Carter, who has been medical director of the rehabilitation center since 2015.
Carter said she became interested in helping people overcome neurological and orthopedic issues when she was in college and her 57-year-old father suffered a stroke.
"I witnessed the crucial impact of a rehab team both on the patient and the family," she said. "Now, every patient I treat, I see my father and try to find out what is meaningful to them and what their individualized goals may be. I aim to treat my patients with the same compassion and quality of care I wanted for my dad."
Jessica Watson, director of rehabilitation services for Valley Health, said about 400 patients per year are admitted into the center's in-patient treatment programs. Hundreds more people utilize its outpatient services, which include pool therapy for patients with physical challenges, speech therapy for children with autism, physical therapy for individuals who recently underwent significant medical procedures and more.
David Booth, director of outpatient therapy services at Winchester Rehabilitation Center, came to work at the facility seven months after it opened in 1993. In that time, he said he has seen insurance companies reduce their willingness to pay for long-term rehabilitation, which has put healthcare providers in a position where they have to work faster than ever to help patients improve.
Insurance providers today also push to have patients discharged from hospitals as quickly as possible, so when people are transferred to Winchester Rehabilitation Center, Booth said, they have not always had sufficient time to fully recover and are often in worse physical condition than the patients who came to the facility in the early 1990s, when insurers were more amenable to longer in-patient stays.
Hartstein agreed.
"They're keeping them in acute care hospitals for a very short time," she said. "As soon as they are even remotely medically stable enough, it's a push to get them to the next destination, whether it be a rehab like us or a skilled nursing facility."
When patients come to Winchester Rehabilitation Center, Hartstein said, "They get more intense therapy with the idea of getting them home sooner ... with a goal of being independent or at a level where their family can safely help them."
Every patient sets his or her own recovery goal, such as returning to work, driving a car or using the bathroom independently. Winchester Rehabilitation Center works toward achieving that goal, which sometimes requires staff to be creative. For example, an employee's dog, Paprika, was recently brought in to work with a client who wanted to be able to walk his own dog once he got home.
"We simulate a lot of environments to re-create a situation they might have at home," Hartstein said. "But the therapy doesn't stop here. They go home and either do home health therapy or continue with outpatient therapy."
Families are key to the recovery process, Carter said, so the center also trains relatives in the best ways to care for their loved ones.
"That aspect sets us aside from other levels of rehab," she said.
The therapists at Winchester Rehabilitation Center help their clients stay focused through the difficult, sometimes painful, recovery process by using humor, praise, goal setting and never-ending encouragement.
"When you're able to bring entertainment and make work fun," Carter said, "it's easier to push forward and work harder and do more. That's what our therapists do."
Kelly said her therapy team's kindness and compassion is what got her through the most difficult ordeal of her life, but Frye said Kelly is selling herself short.
"She's giving us all the credit but she did all the work," Frye said.
"We always said Cathy was our best student ... but we had to give her her confidence back," Sansone added. "She didn't believe in herself the way we believed in her."
Thanks to the encouragement and support of her therapy team, Kelly's confidence soared and she worked as hard as humanly possible to bounce back from a debilitating stroke.
"She was very motivated to improve," Adler added. "She came along so quickly and so beautifully."
Kelly said the employees at Winchester Rehabilitation Center are "miracle workers," and she considers herself a highly satisfied customer.
"They are doing wonders for our community," she said. "It's amazing."
To learn more about Winchester Rehabilitation Center, visit https://bit.ly/3uv9po8.
— Contact Brian Brehm at bbrehm@winchesterstar.com
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