Rehabilitation service directory
For more information on the organisations that support your rehabilitation journey, please view our service directory.
Advice and support
Living with a disability or injury can be difficult. These services offer advice that may help you and may be able to point you to where you can get help to support you.
Amputee rehabilitation
The loss of a limb has severe implications for a person’s mobility, and ability to perform activities of daily living. This can impact negatively on their participation and integration into society.
The ultimate goal of rehabilitation after limb loss is to function and walk successfully with the use of a prosthesis and to return to a high level of social reintegration.
Prosthetic rehabilitation is a complex task that ideally requires input from a multidisciplinary rehabilitation team. However, most often physiotherapists are in charge of the physical rehabilitation process.
Assistive technology
Assistive technology (AT) is any item, piece of equipment, software program, or product system that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of persons with disabilities.
AT can be low-tech: communication boards made of cardboard or fuzzy felt.
AT can be high-tech: special-purpose computers.
AT can be hardware: prosthetics, mounting systems, and positioning devices.
AT can be computer hardware: special switches, keyboards, and pointing devices.
AT can be computer software: screen readers and communication programs.
AT can be inclusive or specialized learning materials and curriculum aids.
AT can be specialized curricular software.
AT can be much more—electronic devices, wheelchairs, walkers, braces, educational software, power lifts, pencil holders, eye-gaze and head trackers, and much more.
Assistive technology helps people who have difficulty speaking, typing, writing, remembering, pointing, seeing, hearing, learning, walking, and many other things. Different disabilities require different assistive technologies.
Braces
A brace is a device fitted to something, in particular a weak or injured part of the body, to give support. Or an orthopaedic appliance used to support, align, or hold a bodily part in the correct position.
Carer support
A carer is someone who looks after a relative or friend who, because of age, physical or other disability, cannot manage at home without help. The type of care they provide may range from personal care such as toileting, washing and feeding to visiting shopping and housework.
Caring for someone can take its toll on the carer’s physical and mental health, social life, career and relationships. Taking time out to look after yourself is important if you’re to continue supporting yourself and the person you’re caring for.
There are a range of support services available for carers, many of which are provided free through social services. These can include:
- Time out – short breaks from your caring role, including respite care for the person you’re caring for, can give you a chance to recharge your batteries.
- Practical help – things that perhaps used to be simple, such as housework, laundry, grocery shopping or gardening, which can become a strain when you’re caring for someone.
- Modifications – equipment or alterations to the home that can make life easier.
- Emotional support – whether it’s in the form of professional counselling or just someone to talk to on a regular basis.
- Support to improve your well-being – access to exercise, learning opportunities or social activities.
- Advocacy – having someone to speak on your behalf.
Clinical psychology
Clinical Psychology is a branch of Psychology. It is concerned with the assessment and treatment of mental illness, abnormal behaviour, and other psychiatric problems.
Unlike psychiatrists and other doctors who sometimes use medications to treat their patients, Clinical Psychologists can only use talk therapy as treatment.
Complex rehabilitation
Complex Rehabilitation is required for a small number of patients with highly complex needs that require the staff, expertise and facilities of tertiary specialised or Level 1 rehabilitation services.
Counselling
Counselling is a talking therapy that involves a trained therapist listening to you and helping you find ways to deal with emotional issues.
Sometimes the term “counselling” is used to refer to talking therapies in general, but counselling is also a type of therapy in its own right.
Dietetics
Dietetics is the application of the science of nutrition to the construction of diets and the selection and preparation of foods, in health and disease.
A dietitian will have undertaken training in a hospital and/or community setting as part of their course and is specially trained to give practical advice to individuals about their diets. Many dietitians are employed in the NHS, and they work with both healthy and sick people, as well as their families.
With patients who need special diets, dietitians use their scientific knowledge to provide practical information that is appropriate to the patient’s medical history and lifestyle.
Drug and alcohol support
Drug and alcohol support is for people who have problems related to addiction to or dependence on, abuse or misuse of drugs ro alcohol. The range of problems is wide and varied.
This support includes a range of services depending on what is needed, from detox and residential rehab to supported living and aftercare support.
Emotional support
Developing close, healthy relationships is one of the best things we can do for our emotional well-being.
Emotional support is born out of real, authentic relationships with other people. In healthy friendships and relationships, it is a two-way street; both people in the relationship give and receive emotional support freely.
Emotional support is a vital component of a healthy relationship and indicates that a relationship is deeper and more meaningful than a casual acquaintance. True, meaningful relationships are characterized by mutual and unconditional emotional support.
Equipment
There is whole range of equipment that can be used to improve the life of a disabled person and enhance their ability to function and get about.
Access to the right type of equipment requires assessment by someone with the correct expertise and knowledge of the range of options available.
Hydrotherapy
Hydrotherapy, or water therapy, is the use of water (hot, cold, steam, or ice) to relieve discomfort and promote physical well-being.
Hydrotherapy can be used to soothe sore or inflamed muscles and joints, rehabilitate injured limbs and promote relaxation. The temperature of water used affects the therapeutic properties of the treatment.
Mobility and driving
Disability can often lead to a sufferer having reduced ability to get around independently. There are a range of options available to enhance the mobility of a disabled person, including outside their own home. These options include wheelchairs, mobility scooters and adapted cars.
Neuropsychology
Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology that is concerned with how the brain and the rest of the nervous system influence a person’s cognition and behaviors. More importantly, professionals in this branch of psychology often focus on how injuries or illnesses of the brain affect cognitive functions and behaviors.
Occupational therapy
Occupational therapy (OT) is the use of assessment and intervention to develop, recover, or maintain the meaningful activities, or occupations, of individuals, groups, or communities.
Orthotics
Orthotics, or surgical appliances, is the prescription, manufacture and fitting of externally worn device used to modify the structural and functional characteristics of the neuro-muscular and skeletal system.
Paediatrics
Paediatrics is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents.
Physiotherapy
Physical therapy also known as physiotherapy, is one of the allied health professions that uses exercises, mobilization, electrical and physical agents to treat acute or chronic pain, movement and physical impairments resulting from injury, trauma or illness typically of musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological and endocrinological origins. Physical therapy is used to improve a patient’s physical functions through physical examination, diagnosis, prognosis, patient education, physical intervention, rehabilitation, disease prevention and health promotion.
Podiatry
Podiatry or podiatric medicine is a branch of medicine devoted to the study, diagnosis, and medical and surgical treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle, and lower extremity.
Prosthetics
A prosthesis or prosthetic implant is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trauma, disease, or a condition present at birth (congenital disorder). Prostheses are intended to restore the normal functions of the missing body part.
Rehabilitation medicine
Rehabilitation medicine is a branch of medicine that is concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation management of mainly younger people with disabling medical conditions and is divided into the subspecialties of neurorehabilitation, amputee, cardiac, spinal injury, trauma and general rehabilitation.
Responsive services
Responsive services are those that provide short-term interventions to resolve immediate problems and respond to crisis events. Patients, carers, parents/guardians, community members and clinical staff can all initiate responsive services.
Social work
Social workers aim to improve people’s lives by helping with social and interpersonal difficulties, promoting human rights and wellbeing. Social workers protect children and adults with support needs from harm. From helping keep a family under pressure together to supporting someone with mental health problems, social work is very varied.
Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work.
Speech and language therapy
Speech and language therapy provides treatment, support and care for children and adults who have difficulties with communication, or with eating, drinking and swallowing. Speech and language therapists (SLTs) are allied health professionals.
Support gorups
Support groups bring together people who are going through or have gone through similar experiences. For example, this common ground might be cancer, chronic medical conditions, addiction, bereavement or caregiving.
A support group provides an opportunity for people to share personal experiences and feelings, coping strategies, or firsthand information about diseases or treatments.
For many people, a health-related support group may fill a gap between medical treatment and the need for emotional support. A person’s relationship with a doctor or other medical personnel may not provide adequate emotional support, and a person’s family and friends may not understand the impact of a disease or treatment. A support group among people with shared experiences may function as a bridge between medical and emotional needs.
Surgical appliances
Surgical appliances, or orthotics, is the prescription, manufacture and fitting of externally worn device used to modify the structural and functional characteristics of the neuro-muscular and skeletal system.
Vocational rehabilitation
Vocational rehabilitation can be defined as whatever helps someone with a health problem to stay at, return to and remain in work.
It is is a process which enables persons with functional, psychological, developmental, cognitive, and emotional disabilities, impairments or health disabilities to overcome barriers to accessing, maintaining, or returning to employment or other useful occupation.