Step 1: Defining the therapy plan
At the start of every intensive care treatment at AMBULANTICUM®, we define the primary focus and goals of therapy for the individual. Our team of therapists compile a course of treatment and determine the therapy plan as well as the necessary measures of intensive care in close coordination with the patient and their relatives, based on numerous discussions and ICF classified interdisciplinary findings.
Due to the fact that we are an outpatient based treatment centre, patients and their carers that are from out of town, are accommodated in hotels and holiday apartments. In this way, patients and their carers are able to transfer and apply the acquired exercises and movement patterns into their everyday life right from the start.
Step 2: Setting and reaching therapy goals.
Once the goals are set, we help our patients to advance towards these continuously during the 4 to 7 hours of sessions per day. During our interdisciplinary weekly team meetings, we regularly reflect on the progress in light of the treatment goal and adjust the therapy modules where needed.
The patient is attended by a mentor during the intensive care therapy, who is available at any point in time. All the information converges here. The mentor is the contact person for the relatives, therapists, doctors and medical supply stores, as well as during the home based period.
Video footage, assessments and even gait analyses pervade the intensive care therapy like a red thread. They are important instruments to capture progress developments, to review and adjust therapy goals – irrespective in which field the focus of the measures lie. We point out the developments and improvements to our patients by means of video-based analyses and equipment-based methods of diagnostics. A video analysis visualises the acquired goals at the conclusion of the therapy. The exercises learnt during therapy, the actual level of development, as well as the circumstances at home are the basis for the development of the home program.
Step 3: Schooling of patients and relatives
The therapeutic treatment at AMBULANTICUM® not only involves the intensive therapy but also includes conversations, measures and schooling with patients and relatives. Home programs ensure that the therapeutic successes have a lasting effect and are transferred smoothly into the patient’s daily routine and further progress can therefore be reached. We collaborate closely with the therapists who support and monitor our patients at home in order to make this possible.
To make life in their own home easier still, we test movement patterns that assist the patients out of a therapy mode and into a therapy- and training-like recreational sport mode. Where necessary, we contact medical supply stores which take care of patients locally, so as to improve the provision of assistive devices for example. For the permanent success of the intensive therapy, it is crucial to secure the acquired skills in everyday life. This is given highest priority during therapy at AMBULANTICUM®.