North Texas Traumatic Brain Injury Model System
Dallas, TX
Website: http://www.utsouthwestern.edu
Project Director: Ramon Diaz-Arrastia
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Clinical Description
Post-Acute Services in Rehabilitation: All patients discharged from BIR are followed in the Brain Injury Follow-Up Clinic which provides a life-long resource of physician, social work, and therapy services. The Day Neuro Rehabilitation Program is an outpatient program integrating PT, OT, Speech Therapy, vocational, and neuropsychological interventions, with an emphasis on cognitive rehabilitation. Specialty services are provided for adaptive driving evaluation and training, balance/vestibular deficits, aquatic therapy, dysphagia management, low vision impairments, spasticity management, animal assisted therapy, and custom wheel chair seating and positioning. BIR staff participate in joint ventures with the Brain Injury Association of Texas and the Texas Traumatic Brain Injury Advisory Council to improve supports and services and to provide education to the community and state agencies. BIR collaborates with the University of Texas in Dallas (UTD) in the "Community Partners" program to provide free cognitive rehabilitation services through the Speech Language Pathology program at UTD. BIR has provided a venue for social support and community education through affiliation with churches and synagogues to establish an innovative system of "camp experiences." A week long camp, "Mountain High", has provided adventure annually for the past 11 years to TBI survivors. "Friends of Hope Day Camp" is held quarterly in the Dallas-Ft Worth area and melds the commitment of community volunteers with the need for socialization and inspiration. In the UTSW system, post-acute brain injury care is provided in a variety of settings. Patients are provided treatment from acute care through outpatient management through the PMH system. Services are coordinated through the TBI clinic which is headed by a TBI Fellowship-trained physiatrist. A variety of subspecialty clinics are available, including speech pathology (with a special interest in cognitive therapy), spasticity management, custom wheelchair seating and positioning, vestibular rehabilitation, and dysphasia management. When patients are discharged from ZLUH inpatient rehabilitation they are followed in the Sprague clinic at ZLUH and provided on-going treatment, including custom wheelchair seating and positioning. Faculty from the UTSW Department of PM&R serves as medical directors for these programs. This private facility is unique in that it offers a scholarship program for indigent patients.
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