Integrated Care Approach

A Typical Day in the Spine Rehabilitation Program

Benefits to Employers

UI Spine Rehabilitation Team

The Spine Rehabilitation Program is a comprehensive two-week program that involves a firm commitment from you to change how you deal with chronic pain.

The program helps you develop skills to manage your pain more effectively while improving your quality of life. All activities take place in the UI Spine Rehabilitation Unit, a non-residential group setting where you learn and work with others who also experience chronic spine pain.

The goal of the program is to help you develop a clear plan for the future that will allow you to:

• Become more active and stay active
• Understand the role of conditioning and fitness to manage pain
• Use medication safely and appropriately
• Learn new psychological skills to cope with stress and pain
• Develop a vocational plan that will enable you to return safely to full-or part-time employment

Our program has been in existence for almost 15 years. Patients treated in an interdisciplinary setting function better, have higher rates of returning to work, fewer disability payments, and have reduced the duration of pain. The benefits of interdisciplinary treatment can be maintained for a lifetime.

Our success is due, in part, to an excellent staff dedicated to treating complex patients with chronic pain. The medical director of the program is a physician who specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation. Our team includes a social worker, a psychologist, physical therapists, and a vocational counselor. Other specialty areas available for consultation include spine surgery, psychiatry, internal medicine, and smoking cessation.

Because so much of the stress facing chronic back patients is financial, our program includes extensive vocational exploration as a critical component of rehabilitation that few other pain rehabilitation programs can offer.

A typical day of group activities includes:

• Movement therapy
• Lectures and/or discussions
• Conditioning activities
• Training in coping skills
• Activities modifications
• Functional restoration activities
• Vocational counseling
• Leisure activities