Efficacy of rehabilitation for inpatients with neurodegenerative disorders in an acute care hospital

Abstract

Our hospital provides medical care for neurodegenerative disorders as one of its policy–based medical practices ; however, as there are no facilities nearby that offer inpatient rehabilitation for these patients, our acute care hospital also provides inpatient rehabilitation for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and spinocerebellar degeneration (SCD). In our center, we provided 40 minutes of physical and occupational therapy on weekdays to 81 patients with PD and 25 patients were SCD who were able to walk independently, some of whom also received speech–language–hearing therapy. Music therapy was provided to patients with PD once a week, and 20 of these 25 patients also received protirelin infusions. At the time of admission and discharge, patients with PD underwent Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale scoring and gait assessment, while patients with SCD were assessed for balance function using the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia and International Cooperative Ataxia Rating Scale. The evaluation items at the time of discharge showed significant improvements in both diseases, demonstrating their effectiveness. Acute care hospitals have a limited number of rehabilitation staff, making it difficult to accommodate the regular rehabilitation admissions necessary to maintain function ; however, we resolved this issue in our center through the establishment of a ward for disabled patients. This experience is reported in this paper.