Rehabilitation Services staff present at national conference

At the National Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association held recently in Washington, DC, members of Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital’s Rehabilitation Services Department presented their poster project titled “Utilizing Preoperative Measurements of Single Leg Stance and the Timed Up and Go as Clinical Predictors of Length of Stay Following Total Knee Arthroplasty.”

The project, authored by Inpatient Physical Therapists Sherrie Renzi, PT, MSPT, Susan Torchia, PT, DPT and Kathryn Belanger, PT, MPT, Inpatient Physical Therapy Manager Gina Marsh, PT, MSPT, Director of Rehabilitation Services Jean Flanagan Jay, PT, DPT, CLT, and Senior Statistical Analyst for Orthopaedics Jamie Collins, PhD, looked at patients seen three months prior to surgery and followed for two months post operatively to predict length of stay following total knee replacement surgery.

During their poster presentation, the group found that the audience was very much engaged. “We were asked many great questions about our poster,” says Marsh. “The work we are doing to focus on testing, pre-habilitation and ways to impact and predict length of stay after total joint replacement surgery was a hot topic at CSM this year. So much total joint research is focused post-operative management, but this highlighted the need for the pre-operative and acute care stages of research needed.”

In addition to their poster presentation, the group also had the chance to attend lectures on total joint arthroplasty rehabilitation, Parkinson’s disease and Medicare documentation. Marsh says, “One of the most impactful and helpful lectures for the group that attended was the Hospital for Special Surgeries lecture on total hip arthroplasty rapid recovery. We have been doing same-day total joint replacement here for about six months so it was great to hear from a hospital that has been working on this for the past five years or greater. It was a great opportunity to compare and contrast practices and get some great ideas to bring back with us.”

To see the team’s poster presentation, click here.