News
On With Life Receives National Innovation Award
October 20, 2014
LeadingAge, a national association representing 6,000 nonprofit aging-services organizations throughout the United States, has selected On With Life as the recipient of the 2014 Innovation in Care and Services Award. On With Life is being honored for the Disorders of Consciousness (DOC) program, which provides a specialized model and system of care for adolescents and adults with severe brain injury.
“This extraordinary accomplishment reflects the expertise of On With Life’s stellar clinical team, which understands complex treatment needs and has developed a specific model of care to enhance recovery,” stated William L. Minnix, Jr., president and chief executive officer of LeadingAge. “We applaud On With Life for collaborating with national colleagues to develop an instrument now widely used to determine status and progress in the DOC population, for contributing to ongoing research and for sharing their specialized knowledge in papers, training manual contributions and conference presentations.”
On With Life’s Disorders of Consciousness program is a rehabilitation treatment program for individuals with severe brain injury who present with low levels of consciousness. The DOC program involves specialized medical and therapeutic interventions to address body positioning, muscle tone and medical stability. In addition, a specially trained multidisciplinary team provides structured environmental stimuli, monitors for signs of arousal and awareness, and adjusts the stimuli in order to maximize the survivor’s neuronal recovery and functional improvement. Since 2000, On With Life has served more than 200 individuals who were admitted into the DOC program. Of those, 76% of persons served emerged from their DOC and transferred into the traditional rehabilitation program.
“We are incredibly honored to be receiving this award and delighted On With Life has been recognized nationally in this way,” said Julie Fidler Dixon, executive director at On With Life. “Our more than 20 years of serving this specialty population have helped us shape the program to what it is today, and we are privileged to have the opportunity to make such a positive impact on the lives of the individuals we serve.”
Pat Stilwill, Administrator and Dave Anders, Director of Therapy, accepted this award on behalf of the organization during the LeadingAge Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN on October 19-22, 2014 . Here is a video of the award ceremony:
