Inpatient Rehabilitation
Our Approach
At Providence St. Elias Specialty Hospital Inpatient Rehabilitation, we offer intensive rehabilitation care so you can return to your community as quickly and safely as possible. At our 46-bed facility, we take a medically based, multi-specialty approach. A doctor who specializes in rehabilitative care leads your team, ensuring responsive, highly focused care.
We provide rehabilitation for people who’ve experienced a stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury or other critical illness or injury. We also provide individualized support and care after joint replacement, major surgery, amputation or traumatic injuries.
Whatever your condition, our goal is to:
- Help you achieve your highest level of functioning and independence
- Help you manage pain and optimally manage your medical problems
- Prevent future complications
When life sets you back, our specialists help you move forward toward better health and independence.
We treat people recovering from these and other conditions or disorders:
- Amputation
- Arthritis
- Brain and nerve diseases and disorders
- Brain injury
- Congenital deformities
- Degenerative diseases and disorders
- Heart and lung disease
- Hip fractures
- Joint inflammation
- Joint replacements
- Movement disorders
- Major multiple trauma injuries
- Multiple sclerosis
- Muscle, bone and skeletal disorders
- Muscular dystrophy
- Neurological disease
- Neuropathy
- Parkinson’s disease
- Spinal cord injuries
- Stroke
- Vasculitis
We provide intensive, active and coordinated treatments, including physical and occupational therapy, recreational therapy and speech therapy. We work across specialties to stabilize and manage wide-ranging medical conditions.
Our multi-specialty rehabilitative team provides comprehensive treatment for neurological and cardiopulmonary (heart and lung) conditions, brain and spinal cord injuries, degenerative disease and bone fractures. We also assist with post-surgical recovery from hip and other major joint procedures, amputations and complex accidental trauma.
At Providence St. Elias, your providers work together to develop and guide an individualized care plan for you. You’ll receive physical, occupational and speech therapy if needed for at least three hours a day, five days a week.
Your treatment may include the therapies below and more:
- Diet and nutritional guidance from registered dietitian
- Occupational therapy
- Orthopedic surgeon consults
- Orthotics consulting
- Peer mentoring
- Physical medicine and rehabilitation physician consults
- Physical therapy
- Recreational therapy
- Rehabilitation nursing
- Speech therapy
After an extended illness or surgery, your rehabilitative treatment may be complicated by related serious health conditions. Many of our patients require extensive medical attention and therapies before they’re stable enough to qualify for admission to an inpatient rehabilitation facility.
Although most of our patients are admitted from another acute care hospital, it’s also possible to be admitted from a skilled nursing facility, surgery center, doctor’s office or home.
To start your referral, please contact our referral hotline at 907-565-CARE.
Our therapists hold a variety of advanced certifications and training, including these and other areas of specialization:
- Brain injury
- Clinical neurologic physical therapy
- Instrumental swallowing studies (MBSS and FEES)
- Lymphedema
- Vestibular (balance and dizziness) rehabilitation
Your care team may include many clinical professionals and specialists, including these and other care providers:
- Case managers
- Chaplain services
- Dietitians
- Hospitalists
- Intensivists
- Nephrologists
- Neurologists
- Neuro-optometry
- Nurse liaisons
- Nurse practitioners
- Occupational therapists
- Orthopedic surgeons
- Otolaryngologists
- Pharmacists
- Physiatrists
- Physical therapists
- Physician assistants
- Podiatrists
- Primary care doctors
- Psychologists
- Pulmonologists
- Radiologists
- Recreation therapists
- Rehabilitation nurses
- Respiratory therapists
- Sleep medicine practitioners
- Social workers
- Speech-language therapists
- Urologists
Find a Doctor
At Providence, you'll have access to a vast network of dedicated and compassionate providers who offer personalized care by focusing on treatment, prevention and health education.
Our Programs
If you’ve had a brain injury, rehabilitation is an important part of your recovery. Our personalized plans focus on independence, health and community reintegration.
You’re partnered with a rehabilitative team trained in the management and rehabilitation of SCI/D to help restore optimal function, prevent complications from physical disability and adapt to an altered lifestyle.
We help you recover and regain independence through specialized therapies while actively working to prevent more strokes from occurring, so you achieve the highest possible quality of life after a stroke.
Frequently Asked Questions
Acute rehabilitation is a medically based, multi-specialty approach to treating needs related to stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury, neuromuscular disorders, amputation and orthopedic conditions.
Our team works to improve abilities, including physical and cognitive function – thinking, memory and other skills – language and communication. We help you gain independence in daily activities and self-care skills such as dressing, grooming, swallowing and eating.
Our experienced nurse liaisons conduct an assessment to help determine whether inpatient rehabilitation is the right fit for your needs. We provide comprehensive inpatient care, including physician and nursing support.
If you require intensive, coordinated therapies – such as physical, occupational or speech therapy – we're here to help you actively engage in a personalized rehabilitation plan, designed to support your recovery.
Evidence shows that the sooner you start rehabilitation, the better results you’re likely to have. Our nurses and practitioners work with referring hospitals and doctors to ensure the earliest possible start to rehabilitation.
We base admission on your medical history, your ability to participate in 3 hours of therapy at least 5 days a week and whether therapies are likely to help you improve significantly within a reasonable time.
No, you can be admitted to our programs from a hospital, residential setting or home – including the home of a friend or family member – or an assisted living facility. You must have a need for close medical supervision by a doctor to manage your medical condition.
There are no strict limitations, however the following diagnoses are approved by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid due to the proven benefits of this intense level of care:
- Active, severe or advanced arthritis, including polyarticular rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and seronegative arthropathies
- Amputation
- Brain injury
- Burns
- Congenital deformity
- Hip fracture
- Knee or hip joint replacement
- Major multiple trauma
- Neurological disorders
- Spinal cord injury/disorder (SCI/D)
- Stroke
- Systemic vasculitides, commonly known as chronic blood vessel inflammation, with joint inflammation
Most people stay about two weeks. Your needs and continued progress determine how long you stay. Your care manager and care team work with your family or caregivers to coordinate a safe, timely and successful return home.
Rehabilitation is an active process that takes up your entire day. We tailor your therapy to your needs and goals.
You’ll receive physical, occupational or speech therapy for a minimum of 3 hours a day for 5 days a week, which can include weekends. You’ll practice the skills and strategies you learn in therapy outside of therapy hours under the supervision of a nurse.
A doctor specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation, known as a physiatrist, leads your team.
The team also includes specialized nurses, physical, occupational, speech and respiratory therapists, social workers, dieticians, pharmacists and others.
For referrals from the community, please contact our Referral Hotline 907-565-CARE.
Practitioners can make a referral through the EPIC electronic medical system for an inpatient rehabilitation consult.
Our nurse liaisons are frequently on-site at all the area hospitals. They attend daily rounds and are available for your referral.