Neurorehabilitation
Rehametrics is a rehabilitation software platform which is currently already being used for neurorehabilitation. Although many people are familiar with rehabilitation in general, many know very little about neurorehabilitation. The main reason for this is that neurorehabilitation is a relatively recent area. So, the first thing we should ask ourselves is, what do we understand by neurorehabilitation?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), neurorehabilitation is an active process by which individuals with an injury or neurological disorder can reach the most optimal integral recovery possible, allowing them to develop physically, mentally and socially in the best way possible, so that they can integrate with their surroundings in an appropriate manner.
In this case, as can be seen in the WHO definition, a special emphasis is placed in recovering physical aspects, but also in achieving gains in both mental and social aspects. Having a multidisciplinary objective is one of the main differences between rehabilitation and neurorehabilitation. So, the first thing that we must keep in mind is that a multidisciplinary approach is important to obtain the best outcomes. But, does this new type of rehabilitation apply to all conditions linked to neurorehabilitation?
Neurodevelopmental Disorders
From a very early age -and even during pregnancy- certain brain alterations can take place that can result in a delay in the acquisition of motor or cognitive functions, in recognizing emotions or in paying attention. Although in some cases these alterations can be a part of normal child development, it is always important to discard neurodevelopmental disorders. This is why, an early intervention is very important to help the child and to stimulate his or her neurological development. And, of course, neurorehabilitation can also be very useful for this.
As a result, there are five types of neurodevelopmental disorders. Some can be permanent and others temporary:
Communication Disorders: individuals have difficulty communicating regardless of having the capacity to do so, according to their age.
Intellectual Disability: significant limitations from an intellectual perspective and in adaptive social or behavioral skills.
Autism Spectrum Disorder: difficulty in communication and interpersonal interaction, among others.
Specific Learning Difficulties: difficulties in school-related activities, like writing, reading or mathematics.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: difficulty to maintain attention or to complete assigned tasks, among other aspects.
The main objective in these cases is to stimulate the child’s capabilities to ensure that their maximum potential development is reached.
Acquired Brain Injury
Similarly, if the main cause behind these brain alterations is a brain injury or a disease, then we are facing an acquired brain injury. This term refers to a lesion or brain injury that is acquired during an individual’s life that was not present before birth. There are multiple causes that can result in an acquired brain injury, although the main ones are:
Stroke: occurs when blood flow to an area of the brain is suddenly interrupted (ischemic) or when a blood vessel breaks, which results in an outpouring of blood towards different areas of the brain (hemorrhagic).
Traumatic Brain Injury: tends to occur when brain tissue is damaged as a result of a blow to the head or a traumatic event. The most frequent causes are traffic or work-related accidents.
Anoxia: refers to a lack of or a low amount of oxygen reaching the brain during a predetermined time that results in neuronal death.
Brain Tumor: the tumor itself or the procedures used to eliminate it can damage adjacent brain tissue.
Others: normally include different types of encephalitis.
Treatment for Acquired Brain Injuries
Independently of the cause, an acquired brain injury usually requires a complex treatment. This is because, depending on where the damage took place, different brain functions can be affected. In practice, this means that, injuries and their effects will vary greatly among different patients. As a result, whenever an acquired brain injury takes place, the first objective of the medical team will be to save the patient’s life and, after that, to clinically stabilize the patient.
Once the patient is stable, it is possible to move on to the next phase of recovery: the attempt to rehabilitate, as soon as possible, the physical and cognitive functions that were affected by the acquired brain injury. Since these would normally be complex injuries, their effects and the associated consequences on the individuals suffering from them will also be vary greatly. It is exactly because of this that the approach required to deal with an acquired brain injury normally requires that the different healthcare professionals collaborate with each other. In other words, a multidisciplinary approach is required to obtain the best possible level of recovery. Numerous clinical studies have shown that an early participation in a quality rehabilitation program based on a multidisciplinary approach is of the utmost importance to obtain the best clinical outcomes.
Acquired Brain Injury Rehabilitation
There is substantial clinical evidence to demonstrate that an intensive, personalized and multidisciplinary rehabilitation allows patients to obtain the best functional outcomes. Rehametrics was designed with the objective of facilitating the implementation of acquired brain injury rehabilitation programs that have the following characteristics:
Multidisciplinary Approach: our platform integrates, in a single software platform, exercises for physical, cognitive, functional and language rehabilitation. Moreover, Rehametrics allows sharing, among healthcare professionals of the different clinical areas, of the results obtained by patients while completing those exercises.
Personalized Sessions: the more than 180 exercises available in Rehametrics can have their difficulty finely adjusted, to ensure that they adapt to the needs of each patient.
Intensive Treatments: clinicians will be able to program all the sessions necessary to obtain the best clinical outcomes for their patients.
It is also necessary to mention another fundamental feature of Rehametrics: its capability to quantify the rehabilitation sessions completed by patients independently of where they are located. In this way, rehabilitation professionals obtain relevant and objective data that can assist them to make better clinical decisions during their patients’ rehabilitation process.
