Assessment of rehabilitation potential

Physicians often have a powerful influence on patients and their families. If we enthusiastically recommend a realistic rehabilitation program, it will help our patients face the arduous process of functional recovery. Rehabilitation potential depends on many factors. Although there are scales that predict outcome following illnesses such as stroke or hip fracture, these outcomes are based on physical function. Until scales are developed that also look at psychologic and social and economic circumstance, the clinician's judgment is the only available method for determining rehabilitation potential. A screening tool that has been useful in assessing patients for admission to an acute rehabilitation inpatient unit is included in the Appendix. More research is needed to define which parameters in the physical, psychologic, and socioeconomic realms are useful in predicting rehabilitation potential. Funding for a prospective, long-term study is needed. Meanwhile, we must be vigilant in looking for the potential in all of our patients.