Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) will open the Qatar Rehabilitation Institute (QRI) in Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City soon, offering best care in rehabilitation services for stroke patients and others.
The groundbreaking new facility will provide patients with world-class integrated rehabilitation services, including specialist stroke recovery. Multi-disciplinary teams of physicians and occupational, physical, paediatric and speech therapists will work together to offer advanced stroke and traumatic brain injury treatments and services.
These cutting-edge services and treatments will be tailored to each patient’s individual needs. For stroke patients, one of the services that will be offered is intensive gait training to help patients walk again. Additionally, QRI’s strength and endurance services will focus on helping patients’ neurologic, muscular, bone and joint recovery to help them regain their independence.
The QRI’s co-ordinated and collaborative interdisciplinary approach to treatment and therapy will be based on the most up-to-date research and practice and its foremost goal will be to help patients reach their maximum recovery potential so that they can return to living as normal a life as possible.
One crucial aspect of stroke care is rehabilitation, said Dr Wafaa al-Yazeedi, acting chairperson of the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department at Rumailah Hospital. “Due to the prevalence of risk factors such as diabetes, smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, the incidence of stroke in Qatar is rising. Each year, more than 1,000 acute stroke patients are admitted to HMC and many of these patients require long-term rehabilitative care to help them recover,” she said.
“The primary aim of stroke rehabilitation is to enable the patient to relearn the motor skills they have lost due to the stroke. HMC’s expert rehabilitation teams work together by setting individual patient goals to overcome challenges and find innovative solutions that noticeably improve patient recovery,” said Dr al-Yazeedi.
“The rehabilitation process for patients at HMC begins as early as possible, often 24 to 48 hours after the stroke has occurred. It is important to start the patient’s recovery process as soon as possible to give them the best chance of recovery,” she noted.
Acute strokes often damage critical parts of the brain that control muscle strength, movement and co-ordination. When the blood supply to the brain is suddenly cut off due to an acute stroke, damage to these areas of the brain can lead to a loss of function and coordination in various parts of the body.
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