Services and Treatment Offered
1. Physical Therapy
Physical Therapists at Guadalupe Regional Medical Center offer comprehensive high-quality outpatient physicial therapy care. Our physical therapists customize your care to meet your specific needs and help you reach your goals and regain your functional independence. Physicial Therapy with GRMC can include:
Our rehabilitation center has a dedicated therapy pool and adjacent hot tub. Aquatic therapy utilizes the unique principles of water such as buoyancy, hydrostatic pressure and increased density of water. These principles assist in providing an alternative treatment environment to expedite healing and pain relief in patients who may not yet tolerate land-based programs. You do not need to be able to swim to participate in aquatic therapy.
The Outpatient Therapy team offers pelvic floor dysfunction for women. This treatment is performed by a Physical Therapist and is aimed at the treatment of urinary incontinence, pelvic pain, vulvar pain and interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome. The therapies include therapeutic exercise, biofeedback, internal and external manual therapies, patient relates education/behavioral instructions and electrotherapeutic modalities.
Listen to our therapists talk about Pelvic Floor Dysfunction
Parkinson’s Wellness Recovery is a program designed to provide Parkinson disease-specific neuroplasticity-principled exercise programs that hold promise to slow disease progression, improve symptoms, restore function, and increase longevity and quality of life. Performed through easily repeated and progressed exercises to improve daily tasks made difficult as a result of Parkinson’s Disease and to encourage required neuroplasticity.
Therapeutic Pain Specialists (TPS) are highly trained in understanding chronic pain and are skilled in the integration of pain neuroscience, graded motor imagery, clinical reasoning and practicing evidence based medicine, as well as pacing and behavioral change to help patients with chronic pain. Common areas of chronic pain are the head, back, neck, and various joints across the body.
What we treat:
- Low back pain
- Neck pain
- Osteoarthritis
- Whiplash
- Fibromyalgia
Common Therapeutic Pain Therapy:
- Pain Neuroscience Education
- Therapeutic exercises
- Manual therapy
Benefits of Conservative Treatment:
While surgery and prescription drugs can be the best course of treatment for certain diagnoses, there is evidence demonstrating that conservative treatments, like physical therapy, can be equally effective. TPS can be used in conjunction with medical pain management for recovery. For example:
- Physical therapy for low back pain is a cost-effective treatment that can help avoid advanced imaging scans like MRIs that could increase the cost of care.
- Physical therapy has been proven highly effective for meniscal tears, knee osteoarthritis, rotator cuff tears, spinal stenosis, and degenerative disk disease, among other conditions.
2. Occupational Therapy
Our occupational therapists assist those who are injured, ill or disabled through exercises focused on everyday activities. This helps patients recover and improve the skills needed for daily life and work. Occupational Therapy with GRMC can include:
GRMC’s hand therapy team has more than 45 years of experience, as well as have a certified hand therapist on staff. Certified hand therapists specialize in the treatment of conditions affecting the the entire upper extremity. These include arthritic conditions, post-surgical repairs, carpal tunnel, traumatic hand injuries and neurological conditions. Recovery of functional use of the arm and hand after injury or illness has a direct impact on one’s quality of life – that is why we offer the most speciailzied rehabilitation possible.
We evaluate and treat:
- Orthopedic disroders, such as fractures, tendon injuries and sprains
- Wounds and scars
- Sensibility
- Edema
- Pain
- Range of motion
- Strength and endurance
- Work related injuries
- Activities of daily living (or self care activities)
- Athletic Injures of the upper extremity
- Avocational activities
- Over-use conditions, such as tennis/golfers elbow and trigger finger
Our hand therapy team also specializes in customized fabrication of orthotics to support, correct, and protect various conditions of the arm and hand.
3. Speech Therapy
Our Speech Language Pathologists (SLP) work to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive-communication, and swallowing disorders.
Speech disorders: An individual who has difficulty producing speech sounds correctly or fluently or has problems with their voice or resonance.
Language disorders: A person who has trouble understanding others, or sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
Social communication disorders: Somenone who has trouble with the social use of verbal and nonverbal communication. These disorders may include problems communication for social purposes, talking in different ways to suit the listener and setting, and following rules for conversation. Social communication disorders can also include patients with other conditions, such as traumatic brain injury and stroke.
Cognitive-communication disorders: Those who have problems organizing thoughts, praying attention, remembering, planning, and/or problem solving. These disorders usually happen as a result of a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or dementia, although they can be congenital.
Swallowing disorders (dysphagia): Feeding and swallowing difficulties, with may follow an illness, surgery, stroke, or injury.
The following specialty services are offered by the GRMC Speech Pathology Department:
Fiberoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing, or FEES, is a procedure designed to assess swallowing function through the use of a flexible fiber optic laryngoscope, which allows for visualization and imaging of before and after swallowing. This procedure tests for detection of dysphagia with the goal to prevent malnutrition, dehydration, and aspiration pneumonia.
A Modified Barium Swallow Study, or MBSS, is a fluoroscopic procedure designed to determine whether food or liquid is entering a person’s lungs, also known as aspiration. It permits the medical team to observe the coordination of anatomic structures in the mouth and throat as they are actively functioning when chewing, drinking, and swallowing.
SPEAK OUT!® is a clinically proven speech therapy approach for those with Parkinson’s that provides education and individual speech therapy based on principles of motor learning to improve speech.
Vital Stim® is a non-invasive therapy that uses an electrical current to stimulate the muscles responsible for swallowing. Vital Stim® has been found to be safe and effective for patients, accelerate recovery time from a restricted diet, and help patients achieve sustained improvement and long term results.