Instructing Nursing Home Personnel in Rehabilitation Techniques

Abstract

IN ILLINOIS, as in most other States, complete and intensive rehabilitation services are limited to a, few urban areas, not-ably Chicago and Peoria. Elsewlhere in the State public and private nursing homes are expanding rapidly to care for chronically ill and disabled persons. Some of these persons at other times and under other circumstances, would have been hospital patients. But hospital care for such patients is frequently inappropriate, unavailable, or economically prohibitive, or no agencies are available to help them obtain hospital care. In many sections of Illinois hospital care is not available in the patient's community, and the local physician must rely upon the nursing home for inpatient care wlhen care at home cannot be provided. The shrinking size of private dwellings and the dwindling number of family members available to provide home care has further increased the use of commercial and county nursing homes for both private pay patients and recipienits of public assistance. Likewise, there is frequent evidence of the need for general hospitals to concern themselves more with measures to prevent the development of conditions which may require nursing home care after a hospital stay. The vocational rehabilitation of residents of nursing homes presents several significant problems. For instance, in the average Illinois community there is often little knowledge or appreciation of the philosophy and techniques of rehabilitation and the vocational potentials that may emerge from physical rehabilitation. Similarly, there is often little knowledge of the interests or services of the Federal Office of Vocational Rehabilitation and its counterparts in many of the States. The Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, the Forest Park Founidation of Peoria, through the Peoria Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and the Illinois Public Aid Commission joined forces to colnduct a 3-year research demonstration project, the rehabilitation education service. Begun in February 1957, the project, the first of its kind in the United States, proposed to look for the answers to these questions. * What a-re the rehabilitation needs among patients of a selected group of public and private nursing homes? * Can the existing staffs of these homes, in cooperation with local physicians and services in the local community, meet these needs if they receive adequate training in the philosophy and techniques of rehabilitation? * What kind of training can be developed to provide staffs with a knowledge of rehabilitation techniques and to increase their appreciation of the philosophy of physical and vocational rehabilitation? * What kinds of teaching materials can be developed that other agencies and schools can Mr. Hackley is coordinator of the rehabilitation education service of the Illinois Public Aid Commission, Peoria. The project is supported by grants from the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Forest Park Foundation of Peoria, and the Illinois Public Aid CommLssion.