Highland Health Care Center Outpatient Therapy Services

This outpatient program includes physical therapy and/or occupational therapy for exercises, physical agent modalities, manual therapy, gait training, adaptive activities of daily living, and orthotics and prosthetics training.

There are many different types of pain as well as numerous causes. Whatever the cause may be, pain can significantly impair a person's ability to function normally. Physical therapy offers numerous forms of treatment that can help decrease pain. Modalities such as e-stim (electrical stimulation), ultrasound, and diathermy can help increase circulation, decrease edema, and decrease muscle spasms which can result in a decrease in pain. Other forms of treatment for pain include exercises, manual therapy, postural education, body mechanics education, and joint mobilization.

This program includes therapeutic oral motor exercise, food consistency changes and utilization of safe compensatory techniques to improve swallow safety and function.

This program includes immediate and recent recall of increasingly complex information and directives, sequencing of events, categorizing, and solving hypothetical problems directed to improve the cognitive functions of attention span, memory and thought organization. It also involves indirect therapeutic approaches to enhance residual, cognitive linguistic skills. Modifications of the environment and caregiver education are important aspects of this program.

Our outpatient therapy program offers three modalities that can improve wounds that have failed other conventional types of treatment. The modalities are electrical stimulation (high voltage pulsed current), ultrasound, and short wave diathermy. These modalities may be used to increase blood flow to the affected area, decrease pain and assist in the resorption of edema (swelling). This can help promote the growth of new healthy tissue while decreasing necrotic tissue.

This program begins with pelvic muscle exercises and progresses to exercises accompanied by e-stim (electrical stimulation) as indicated. It also involves assisting patient with bathroom schedules and incontinence products.

This specialty program can help patients with breathing disorders such as COPD, emphysema, and lung cancer. Pulmonary strengthening exercises are used to enable patients to be able to control their breathing, increase oxygen saturation, and decrease shortness of breath. Treatment may include coached breathing techniques, incentive spirometry, muscle training, and the clearing of secretion with the use of a flutter valve. Exercise with arm and/or leg ergometry in conjunction with coached breathing may also be used for treatment.

Vestibular Rehabilitation can significantly reduce symptoms of dizziness, nausea, vertigo and loss of balance to enable a person to return to a normal lifestyle. Problems with a person's ability to maintain balance can include symptoms such as dizziness, vertigo, and nausea caused by stroke, head trauma, inner ear disease, aging, diabetes, and Benign Paroxysmal Vertigo (BPPV). Treatment for these symptoms may include a manual canalith repositioning procedure if the problem is BPPV. Treatment may also include exercises, balance training, compensatory techniques, and education.