While on the job in Illinois, Steve Wartman was up on an aerial work platform changing a light over the high school parking lot. The next thing he remembers about that day in December 2019, was waking up in a trauma center.
“I don’t remember anything from the accident, thankfully,” he says. “I have been told that I fell 32 ft. from the cherry picker to the ground. My injuries included a concussion, strained neck, punctured lung, bruised rib, separated pelvis, broken back, broken tibia, broken fibula and a broken heel, among others.”
He was ready for release as an inpatient to a rehabilitation facility for therapy to regain mobility in mid-February. Wartman was told by hospital staff that he needed to go to a center in downtown Chicago.
“It would have been a hardship for my family to go back and forth to downtown Chicago for therapy every day,” says the Crown Point resident.
The Wartmans knew a new rehabilitation center had opened in Crown Point and found out that Steve qualified for admission. The Community Stroke & Rehabilitation Center extends inpatient rehabilitation care and therapies offered by area hospitals by providing highly skilled trained therapy professionals and advanced state-of-the-art technologies and equipment.
“The Community Stroke & Rehabilitation Center is a great place with great accommodations,” Wartman says. “First class equipment; it is everything you need to progress and regain mobility right there in Crown Point. The staff goes over and beyond expectations. The setting is brand new and beautiful.”
“Studies suggest that for patients recovering from neurological conditions and joint injuries such as Steve’s, intensive inpatient rehabilitation treatment at an inpatient rehabilitation facility may be the best choice,” says Craig Bolda, administrator of the Community Stroke & Rehabilitation Center. This type of advanced care can result in enhanced functional outcomes with a shorter length of stay and higher discharge rate.”
To best meet the needs of each patient, an individualized care plan is created based on an evaluation upon admission. The care plan is used depending on whether the patient is an amputee, is a stroke patient, had a spinal cord or brain injury or is suffering from other neurological conditions.
Once a week, each patient’s care team of doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech therapists and social workers meet to discuss the plan of care and the next steps. The patient and his/her family are invited to attend.
“We encourage family members to become involved; it gives the patient a lot of support,” says Toni Novak, clinical coordinator.
“From the doctors, nurses and administrator to the therapists and housekeepers, they were all phenomenal and extremely helpful,” Wartman says. “Until my accident, I never spent one night in a hospital. My family and I are tightknit. They couldn’t visit me when the COVID crisis hit. The staff at the CSRC became my extended family.”
The goal of therapy at the Community Stroke & Rehabilitation Center is for patients to get back to where they were before they were sick or injured so that they can go home and live as independently as possible, Novak says.
“Besides an excellent nursing staff, we are able to offer more intense physical, occupational and speech therapies with advanced technologies to enhance the care we provide to our patients,” she says.
“One of my goals is to walk on my feet by myself again someday,” Wartman says. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to do that, thanks to the outpatient rehabilitation staff.”
For more information about the Community Stroke & Rehabilitation Center in Crown Point, visit COMHS.org.
