3.9: Restorative Care
Restorative care is provided once a patient has been discharged from a healthcare facility and requires additional services. The additional services include home care, rehabilitation programs, and extended care. Restorative care centers help the patient regain their previous level of functioning or acquire a new level of functioning due to the incapacitating effects of a disease or a disability. It aims to assist patients in enhancing their quality of life by encouraging independence, self-care, and regaining their highest level of functional status. Restorative care services include cardiovascular, pulmonary, and orthopedic rehabilitation, sports medicine, and spinal cord injury programs.
The restorative health care team is a multidisciplinary team that includes the patient, family members, or significant others. In restorative settings, nurses understand that success is dependent on early and successful engagement with patients and their families. Patients and families must understand physical rehabilitation goals, the rationale for any physical limits, and the purpose and potential hazards of therapy. When patients and families are involved, patients are more likely to adhere to treatment programs and attain peak performance.
Home Care:
Home care delivers medically-related professional and paraprofessional services and equipment to patients and families in their homes for health maintenance, education, sickness prevention, disease diagnosis and treatment, palliation, and rehabilitation. Home care nurses are responsible for patient caseloads and provide highly personalized nursing care. They assist patients in adapting to various permanent or temporary physical constraints so they can resume a regular daily home routine. Many areas, such as family dynamics, cultural competency, spiritual beliefs, and communication principles, necessitate a solid knowledge basis for in-home care.
Rehabilitation:
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines rehabilitation as the process of helping persons with disabilities to achieve and maintain their optimal physical, sensory, cognitive, psychological, and social functioning levels. Rehabilitation provides disabled persons with the skills they need to achieve independence and self-determination. The purpose of rehabilitation services is to assist patients and families in making required lifestyle adjustments and learning to operate within the constraints of their sickness. Drug rehabilitation institutions, for example, help patients to become drug-free and functionally re-enter society.
Extended Care Facilities:
An extended care institution provides intermediate medical, nursing, or custodial care to patients recuperating from acute sickness or those suffering from chronic diseases or impairments. It includes skilled nursing or intermediate care facilities that provide professional care from licensed nursing staff. For example, wound care or long-term ventilator maintenance are services provided in extended care facilities.
