Stroke Rehabilitation

A customized, team-based treatment approach keeps patients motivated as they work intensively to improve their ability to think, move, walk, talk, eat and care for themselves. Our rehabilitation experts keep patients motivated. Our doctors, who are board-certified physiatrists specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation, collaborate with our certified rehabilitation registered nurses.

• Gait therapy. Our physical therapists help stroke patients redevelop their brains and bodies for walking. During gait therapy, patients may use body-weight supporting technologies and some may qualify for the Indego® exoskeleton clinical trial.
• Indego® exoskeleton. An FDA-approved, wearable robotic frame that enables stroke survivors to stand up and walk.
• Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). A clinical trial that gives qualified stroke patients the benefit of FDA-approved Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), also called deep brain stimulation, to improve brain function.
• Improving brain function. Our occupational therapists help patients improve their thinking abilities using advanced tools like the Bioness Integrated Therapy System. The system measures a patient's cognition and assigns customized challenges to retrain the brain.
• Development of speech and swallowing abilities. Our speech therapists help patients regain speech and throat control using tools like VitalStim (a non-invasive, external electrical stimulation therapy).
• Intensive therapy. Physical, occupational and speech therapies are provided a minimum of three hours per day, five days per week
• Neuropsychology/Psychology. Neuropsychology is a field within clinical psychology that is dedicated to understanding the relationships between the brain and behavior, which can be applied to stroke rehabilitation.

• An immersive rehabilitation environment at Downtown St. Charles to practice real-world adaptive skills before hospital discharge.
• Complimentary treatments not widely available elsewhere, including acupuncture for stroke symptom management and visual motor imagery techniques to help retrain the stroke-altered brain. These are offered in conjunction with, rather than in place of, traditional medicine.
• Stroke education for patients to help them understand their diagnosis and the rehabilitation process.
• Stroke education for patients and their families/caregivers. Regular meetings help build a strong support system for patients during treatment and beyond.
• Stroke support group for current patients as well as those who have been discharged.