Rehabilitation is a dynamic but also progressive process; it enables you with impairments to reach your optimal level, both mental and physical. It helps you to restore the maximal independence and to increase the quality of life.
It is important to have a high-personalized program. If after a stroke, you have complex medical conditions which prevent your participation in a regular stream rehabilitation program, a LTLD program may help you. What does LTLD stand for? The Low Tolerance, Long Duration (LTLD) Unit is a hospital-based program that provides multiple assessments of different disciplines and rehabilitation.
Usually, two types of stroke rehabilitation are usually practiced. It basically depends on the severity of stroke and your age. The disabilities and impairments are evaluated by several kinds of scores, from which doctors can judge the severity of the stroke and therefore put patients into 3 categories: mild, moderate and severe.
The regular stream stroke rehabilitation is geared towards patients with moderate strokes; and are generally 19-75 in age. Typically, they are able to tolerate a minimum of 60 minutes of therapy per session and their overall expected length of stay is approximately 30-60 days. However, stroke rehab patients who are older than 75 years of age may also be suitable for regular stream stroke rehab if they are able to meet these tolerance benchmarks. Regular stream stroke rehab is also able to accommodate stroke rehab patients with severe strokes if they are younger than 55 years of age, able to sit supported for more than 30 minutes at one time and can tolerate a minimum of 30 minutes of therapy per session.
Apart from the two factors like age and severity of stroke, if you have cognitive impairments and additional disorders or diseases that affect your ability to tolerate the intensity of a regular stroke rehab program, LTLD is a good alternative option. In summary, patients in need of LTLD stroke rehab may:
- Often have suffered from previous strokes
- Have multiple unfavourable disease conditions
- Lack relatively sufficient family support
- Have a sitting tolerance of not more than 5-10 minutes
- Present with aphasia
- Be disoriented with reduced judgment and insight
- Be incontinent
After all, you must be medically stable and demonstrate the potential to learn and improve function.
We are only aware of LTLD stroke therapy being available in Canada where it originated as of today. If you are available of other centres who practice LTLD, do let us know and we will make this information available to our newsletter subscribers.
Take the example of Toronto rehab center. LTLD rehab is provided by an inter professional team including physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, pharmacists, an advanced practice clinician, service coordinator, social worker and other health professionals.
Doctors in Toronto rehab insists on a very goal-oriented rehab program. When a patient arrives, the team works with them to establish some mutual goals and care givers track the success rate of these goals as one of the outcome measures. Patients will not see the drama of high-intensity rehab where significant changes occur in a shorter time. Progress is slow by nature of the type of patients.
It seems that the participants of this program appreciate this innovation. Sylvia, one of the patients under LTLD rehab program, said that LTLD rehab allowed her to regain her strength and confidence so she could once again live independently. “You need to accomplish things within your boundaries. That’s probably the most important thing to realize in this type of program—that people need to work at their own pace and participate as a member of the rehab team.”
Talk to your rehab experts f you are interested in the LTLD rehab program.
Sources:
Greater Toronto Area (GTA) Rehabiliation Network
Toronto Rehab Magazine
