Engagement in Therapy
Engagement is an important part of rehabilitation at On With Life. Clinical Director Dave Anders discusses why it's important and how it looks at our facility.
What are the two components that work together to result in high-quality neuro rehabilitation?
There are two components that, when combined correctly, result in high quality neuro rehabilitation. These two components include clinical competency and engagement-based competency. I’ll use the analogy of pizza to talk about how the two components work together.
What is clinical competency?
Clinical competency encompasses the evidence-based skills rehabilitation professionals apply to the myriad of challenges persons served present with because of their neurological injury or illness. The three broad categories of challenges include physical (e.g., weakness, paralysis, motor planning difficulty), cognitive (difficult with communication and/or thinking skills such as attention, memory and executive functions) and emotional (depression, anxiety, irritability, etc.). Rehabilitation professionals have expertise in evidence-based approaches to address these challenges. I think of these competencies as the foundational elements of neuro rehabilitation – I the same way that the crust, sauce and cheese are the foundational elements of a pizza.
What is engagement-based competency?
For most individuals, cheese pizza is not enough. Additional, more personalized ingredients are needed to provide the best possible rehabilitation experience and outcomes for our persons served and families. This is where engagement-based competencies become critical. We must also combine ingredients such as therapeutic alliance (mutually reinforcing and trusting relations among persons served, families and their team), salience (therapeutic tasks that are personally meaningful), goals that are specific to the individual as well as a healthy dose of humor, creativity, flexibility and genuine curiosity into our rehabilitation. These special ingredients (and others), when combined with our core ingredients, result in a pizza that looks and tastes a little bit different for each person served and family.
What does this look like at On With Life?
I recently sat in on a meeting where the rehabilitation team was brainstorming all the ways we could make Iowa State Fair week special for our persons served and families. The team talked about state fair themed food, a talent show, a hog-calling contest and much more during state fair week – all of which address specific brain injury-related challenges but do so in a way that is creative, fun and engaging!