Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation (CORP)

Functional limitations brought about by injury, illness, or birth defects can have complex and long-term consequences. Sometimes even the simple activities of daily living must be learned in new ways as part of restoring productive living. The Department of Rehabilitation Medicine offers comprehensive inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services at the University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC) and four affiliated hospitals--Harborview Medical Center, Children's Hospital and Medical Center, Overlake Hospital Medical Center and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Each of these facilities offers clinics and consultation services in many areas of expertise, including brain and spinal cord injury, stroke, muscle disease, congenital defects, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, chronic pain syndromes, prosthetics and electrodiagnostic medicine. Department faculty conduct research in many of these same areas, giving patients access to state-of-the-art care.

Evaluation Services

• Comprehensive evaluation by a multidisciplinary team, coordinated by a physician specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation.
• Neuropsychological assessment of cognitive and behavioral assets and deficits.
• Driving evaluation for safety and to assess need for vehicle modifications.
• Vocational analysis for work re-entry goals.
• Assessment of technological needs in communication, ambulation, environmental control and other areas.
• Specialized balance and gait analysis, done through the Balance Testing Laboratory.
• Electromyography and somatosensory evoked potentials; magnetic stimulation for assessing conduction of motor pathways; single-fiber EMG.

Rehabilitation Services

Occupational Therapy

• Evaluation, training, and adaptations
• Independent living skills
• Self care techniques
• Hand and arm performance
• Functional strength and endurance
• Use of adaptive equipment and devices

Physical Therapy

• Balance and ambulation training
• Flexibility and strengthening
• Mobility skills
• Movement control
• Equipment assessment
• Home exercise instruction

Rehabilitation Counseling

• Vocational assessment, referral, and planning
• Job development and placement
• Advice on rights under the ADA
• Job accommodations

Rehabilitation Nursing

• General Health Maintenance
• Wound Evaluation and Care
• Skin Management
• Bowel and Bladder Management
• Medication Review

Clinical Psychology/Neuropsychology

• Assessment of cognitive and emotional
  effects of injury or disease
• Therapy for adjustment to disability,
  depression, anxiety, anger, and relationships
• Techniques to manage pain and
  stress-related physical symptoms

Speech Pathology

• Cognitive communication problems
• Aphasia
• Motor speech disorders
• Swallowing
• Augmentative and alternative communication
• Computer access

Therapeutic Recreation

• Community skills training
• Transportation
• Aquatics
• Community resources
• Peer support

Unique Features

Rehabilitation Medicine is part of the University of Washington Academic Medical Center which gives us many special features:

• A comprehensive Assistive Technology Clinic with a clinical engineer to modify or custom-make equipment as needed.
• Specialists in medicine, surgery, neurology, orthopedics, urology, burns and other fields located within the same building, available for consultation at any time of day or night.
• Interdisciplinary clinics, such as Muscular Dystrophy, Multiple Sclerosis, Spinal Cord Injury, Brain Injury, Arthritis, and Pain clinics, to meet the multi-faceted needs of patients with these complex conditions.
• Specialized dental care for individuals with disability through the UW School of Dentistry.
• Job station program. Unique to the University of Washington, this program places clients in supervised work situations throughout the University system in order to build work tolerance and physical capacity, test work skills, and acquire recent experience. Placements vary from entry level and unskilled positions to professional and technical occupations.

For information or physician appointments, or to make referrals, please call (206) 731-4607. Therapy appointments may be made by telephone at (206) 731-2140 or by FAX at (206) 731-6046. The CORP reception area is located on the Fourth Floor of Harborview Medical Center in the 4 East Clinic, Room 10.

Department of Rehabilitation Medicine
University of Washington
Box 356490
Seattle WA 98195-6490
206-543-3600