Internationale Zeitschrift für Physikalische Medizin und Rehabilitation
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Outcomes of an Inpatient Rehabilitation Program Following Complicated Cardio-Pulmonary Transplantation

Bowman M and Faux S

The Authors describe the first 118 admissions of inpatient multidisciplinary rehabilitation following heart and/or lung transplantation for 86 patients. Over 20% of all transplantation case at St. vincents Hospital in Sydney required inpatient multidisciplinary rehabilitation. The inpatient program is uniquely designed to provide multidisciplinary rehabilitation to a population who require intense medical and surgical monitoring for rejection and side effects of anti rejection drugs. This is done with close cooperation with the transplant surgical and medical teams. Outcomes including FIM change, FIM efficiency, discharge destination, mortality, interruption to therapy and length of stay are presented together with physical therapy outcome measures such as the 6 minute walk test. Complexities in managing these patients are described, such as the up skilling of nursing staff to manage cardiac and respiratory assistive devices, the management of chronotopic incompetence of the denervated heart and the psychological sequelae of transplantation are discussed. To our knowledge this is the first Australian and international descriptive study of inpatient multidisciplinary rehabilitation for heart and lung transplantation.