Is anyone aware of services such as Physical therapy (not in house exercise programs) or occupational therapy being successfully brought to a dialysis facility?

Dialysis clinic personnel are beginning to bring PTs, Ots, and exercise physiologists into the dialysis clinic. There is growing interest in the physical rehabilitation community about the effects of exercise on ESRD. Physical rehabilitation students and professionals who have studied ESRD can educate staff about the importance of exercise and how to promote exercise to patients. They can help dialysis clinics design exercise programs that renal staff and patients can continue. They can assess patients and prescribe exercises. If patients have appropriate diagnoses, Medicare and other payers will even pay for these MD prescribed PT and OT services provided in dialysis clinics.

I am also interested in finding out about clinics that have established relationships with exercise professionals. Dialysis clinics and rehabilitation therapy training programs are linking to provide a training setting for PT students while helping dialysis patients become stronger and more independent. I am aware of dialysis clinics in NY, FL, PA, GA, TN, CA, OH, VA, IA, NJ, TX, and Washington DC that have established such relationships.

The Life Options Rehabilitation Program has free education materials for patients on exercise and information for professionals on starting an exercise program, including how to work with rehabilitation experts. The Life Options website is http://www.lifeoptions.org.

We have successfully begun an increased activity program in our unit with the help and guidance of the P.T. department in our hospital. We put together a group from the unit which included the Social Worker, RNs and Pt. Care Techs who met with 2 P.T.'s and got the procedures/protocols together and started it. The patients that are in the program love it, those who choose not to be involved aren't. The hardest thing was the reimbursement issues. Our doctors would have to write a referral for their patients and it was finally put on our standing orders that each new patient could have a P.T. referral. We now have 2 Champ CyclesTM and hand weights for the patients to use. It took a lot to get it going but works fairly smoothly now.