2024 ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANNUAL CONFERENCE & PT EXPO

This presentation offers a comprehensive look at innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to rehabilitation for individuals with various neurological injuries. The session focuses on evidence-based methods for assessing fall risk from a cognitive perspective and implementing dual-tasking techniques that engage both cognitive and motor functions simultaneously. Drawing from over two decades of clinical experience, the presenters will also share their expertise in developing and implementing a JCAHO-certified brain injury program.

Attendees will gain insights into:
1. The neuroscience of cognitive processing (attention, types of memory, executive functioning: self-awareness/monitoring,
emotional/ behavioral/cognitive self-control) and the impact of medications
2. Effective cognitive and motor dual-tasking methods for rehabilitation with specific guidelines on their implementation
3.Strategies and procedures for developing a JCAHO-certified brain injury program
4.Techniques for preventing harm to patients, families, and staff
5.Best practices for patient management from admission to discharge

The presentation will combine lecture format with interactive role-playing activities, promoting audience engagement and practical application of concepts. Multiple case studies/examples will be presented and discussed for deeper insights and understanding.

This session will begin with recent evidence about primary sensory influences on head and body verticality, sensory selection for differing balance requirements in everyday life, and problems of single system sensory dependence. There will be an interactive discussion focused on examinations and effective interventions for specific problems, discussion of how to sequence and progress visual, vestibular (particularly otolithic), somatosensory and proprioceptive interventions, especially those relating to verticality perception. Interventions for head righting through cervical proprioceptors and ankle proprioception retraining will be included. Interventions will progress from single system treatments to exercises integrating sensory input. The presentation is based on research of successful interventions for people with Mal de Debarquement, a problem of sensory integration, reweighting and likely sensory inhibition. Techniques for retraining sensory selection, integration and reweighting are applicable to people with neurologic problems including TBI, CVA, MS, and dystonia.

This presentation will provide attendees with evidence-based understanding and background knowledge of normal trunk stability, abnormal trunk stabilization within the neurologic population, and motor priming concepts. Then the presentation will lead more into clinical-based methods specifically for trunk stabilization motor priming as a way to treat abnormal balance and walking with the goal such that the attendees are able to directly carryover treatment ideas into their own clinical practice.

This interactive session will expose participants to an innovative resource that supports clinical reasoning related to dizziness as a health condition. While the tool is responsive on all devices, it is recommended that participants bring a tablet or laptop. A detailed case interview will provide a framework for participants to engage in clinical reasoning independently and in small group discussion using DizzyDx. Participants will create a case file and navigate within the app to consider symptoms endorsed in the interview and the common clinical patterns associated with the symptoms described.

Participants will be prompted to discuss aspects of clinical decision making and develop a list of hypothesized impairments within DizzyDx. This can be accomplished individually while engaging in active discussion and collegial debate in small groups. The presenter will facilitate pacing of the group to promote time management and selection of the clinical tests required to rule in and out various impairments relative to the case presentation. Navigation through DizzyDx will reveal supporting evidence, critical thinking prompts, video tutorials, and a confidence interval to help prioritize impairments.

At the end of the session the case summary will be saved into the user's personal DizzyDx profile. Participants will be provided clinical test results and outcomes from the case presented. Follow up discussion with Q and A will encourage feedback related to educational technology and clinical decision support tool development for rehabilitation providers.