Redefining Success: Independence and Celebrating the Ordinary as Part of the Third Metric
Traditionally, “real” success has been defined by a few factors or metrics. Two of these have been money and power. Although these might be deemed to be only “skin deep” under most sets of circumstances, their lack of depth is truly highlighted when an individual has sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Spinal Cord Injury (SCI), a combination of multiple trauma, Amputation or another form of catastrophic injury. For an individual who has sustained a catastrophic injury like these, independence may well be the third metric or factor. This means that success has to be redefined.
In these cases, an individual’s independence is at stake. Regaining it through independent functional evaluations and a custom-tailored rehabilitation plan developed and implemented by a multidisciplinary team becomes the goal and, therefore, the redefinition of success.
Individuals with cognitive and physically functional challenges are taught compensatory strategies through a Client Goal Plan developed following an initial assessment conducted by the multidisciplinary team of professionals at NeuLife Rehab. Through the implementation of therapeutic activities into daily schedules and activities developed by members of the team, NeuLife’s Life Skills Techs (LSTs) carry through the skills taught to each Client in formal therapy. Learned strategies, exercises, skills and community and social interactions help increase independence through repetition and practice every day.
The individuals admitted to NeuLife have suffered tremendous losses. A catastrophic injury is a life-changing event. Traumatic Brain Injury. Spinal Cord Injury. Amputation. Burns. Multiple trauma. The individuals with these types of injuries are hurt physically and emotionally, and some never recover from the psychic trauma. Personalities and affect change, sometimes dramatically. The rehabilitation program at NeuLife focuses on personal needs and preferences of the Clients it serves. The experience alone is difficult enough. NeuLife wants all its Clients to feel inclusion and uses a holistic approach. Encompassing all needs places focus on the total person. NeuLife staff, as a wonderful addition to the responsibility of helping and caring for its Clients going through rehab, gets an added bonus of learning about each person before the injury. This is a huge asset to helping each Client regain as much physical and cognitive function as possible.
Keeping this in mind, success is very different to individuals diagnosed with a catastrophic injury. The defining difference is ordinary versus extraordinary. In one context ordinary might mean a “C” on a report card. But for a NeuLife Client who “just” wants to walk, who “just” wants to speak, who wants to do, independently, anything he or she did before his or her catastrophic injury, a great deal of what may be considered “ordinary” becomes “extraordinary.” It means superlative clinically relevant services. It means ambulation. It means more appropriate behaviors emerge. It means rehabilitative expertise for the specialized rehabilitation of all manner of catastrophic injuries. All these things come together in the celebration of the achievement of independence, even for the “ordinary” things, when NeuLife’s Clients gain independence to the fullest extent of their abilities.
NeuLife’s philosophy is that healing, wellness and personal fulfillment are best achieved in a positive and uplifting therapeutic environment where caring staff encourages, assists and supports each Client so he or she may achieve specific goals. NeuLife believes personal fulfillment is equally as important as goals to achieve function and independence.
NeuLife, in Mount Dora, Florida, is an accessible post-acute program providing specialized rehabilitation to individuals diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Spinal Cord Injury (SCI), Amputations and other Catastrophic Injuries and Diagnoses.
2725 Robie Avenue
Mount Dora, Florida 32757
