Industry News

JR Rehab is Hiring!

Finding your career fit with JR Rehab

JR Rehab is a team of professional contract consultants with a commitment to providing premier quality rehabilitation services as well as providing exceptional support to all of our clients, customers and colleagues.

JR Rehab Services team members include:

As a part of the JR Rehab team you will have the opportunity to work with a diverse mix of clients, enhancing your current skills and developing skills in new areas of practice in a professional, friendly and challenging work environment.

 Values/Vision/Mission

Vision

JR Rehab aspires to be the leading provider of rehabilitation and health services that advance the well-being of our communities.

Mission

To empower our clients to lead healthy and productive lives through personalized health, wellness, and rehabilitation services rooted in our communities.  To provide our business partners and customers with the best personable and results-oriented services each and every day.

Values

  • We believe our clients are resourceful and wholly capable of returning to functional and productive lives.
  • We believe our clients deserve individual rehabilitation and support.
  • We believe that a complete rehabilitation program addresses physical, mental and emotional health.
  • We believe continuing education and training is vital in providing the best rehabilitation services possible.
  • We believe in contributing back to the community that supports our clients.

Career Benefits

Professional Development

We recognize that the field of rehabilitation is constantly evolving and we highly value on-going education for our practitioners as we strive to be a leader in provision of cutting edge services.

  • Provide in-services and educational opportunities in house
  • Support staff attendance at professional workshops, seminars and courses
  • Education bonuses available annually for participation in professional development courses

Clinical and Performance Development

JR Rehab provides mentorship opportunities for therapists to aid in their professional development.

  • One to one meetings to review your caseload therapeutic techniques, work product and practices
  • Team meetings allow therapists with varied experience and background to contribute to team development
  • Lunch and Learn opportunities for new therapists to aske questions and gain perspective from experienced team members

Administrative and Technical support

JR Rehab is proud to provide our staff with the support of a dynamic office team to assist with:

  • Referral management
  • Secure web based file management
  • IT/Clerical assistance
  • Billing assistance
  • Report editing
  • Report distribution

Lifestyle Benefits

  • Flexible work arrangement will allow you to define your own work and lifestyle parameters
  • Young, dynamic team
  • Vibrant and inclusive workplace culture
  • Social and professional engagement opportunities 

 Positions Currently Available with JR Rehab Services

Occupational Therapist in Nanaimo, Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley (more OT info)

  • Case management
  • Community rehabilitation
  • Hospital discharge planning
  • Home assessments
  • Functional capacity assessments
  • Return to work planning
  • Cognitive rehab therapy
  • Functional Capacity Evaluations
  • Cost of future care
  • Medical legal reports

Physiotherapist in Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley (more PT info)

  • Community based assessments
  • Community based treatment

Kinesiologist  in Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley (more Kin info)

  • Active Rehab
  • Community Access
  • Lifeskills training
  • Adapted Physical Activity
  • Cognitive Rehab Therapy
  • Aquatic Therapy

 Contact

Looking for a collaborative and supportive working environment? Find a place on our team! If you would like to know more about a career at JR Rehab Services get in touch

Follow us on Linked In and Facebook

Contact our offices at 604 254 0444 or info@jrrehab.ca

JR Rehab Collabs with CAOT-BC Issue Paper: OT and Re-Assessment

“Occupational therapists have a responsibility to use a systematic approach based on best practice, professional judgement and clinical reasoning in enabling clients
to develop the means and opportunities to identify
and engage in the occupations of life.”

 

JR Rehab recently contributed to the Canadian Association’s publication of an issue paper: Occupational Therapy and Assessment/Re-Assessment. Through these assisted guidelines, insurance companies can gain further insight on how to use OT services effectively in the future. JR hopes to continue collaborating with our fellow colleagues in the community of rehabilitation.

To read more about this paper, full version below.

CLICK HERE: CAOTBC Issue Paper: OT and Assessment/Re-assessment

JR does Walk With Your Doc!

Walk With Your Doc is a volunteer, community-based opportunity for health professionals (Doctors, RN, PT, OT, Kin, etc.) to connect with residents in their community. Getting out and connecting with the community is what JR Rehab is all about. Ask some of our Occupational Therapists, Kinesiologists, and Physiotherapists how they enjoyed their time outdoors!

The Globe and Mail: Prolonged Rest Actually Harmful for those Recovering from Head Injuries

ALLAN MAKI
CALGARY — The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Apr. 26, 2017 8:07PM EDT
Last updated Wednesday, Apr. 26, 2017 8:12PM EDT

Prolonged rest is no longer the best recommendation for people who have suffered concussions, says a document published Wednesday in the British Journal of Sport Medicine, which calls for concussion sufferers to rest only a day or two then get back on their feet.

The International Consensus Statement on Concussions in Sport is an updated document on how best to deal with concussions and is expected to “have a profound impact diagnosing and treating [them],” according to one of three University of Calgary researchers who helped revise the guidelines.

Dr. Willem Meeuwisse, a sport-medicine physician at the U of C’s Faculty of Kinesiology, co-chaired last October’s fifth International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport. More than 400 academics from 24 countries attended the Berlin meeting. What they concluded after much research and debate marked a change in concussion treatment.

“We used to manage this injury with rest and, if they didn’t get better, more rest. Now there’s pretty good evidence that prolonged rest is actually harmful,” Meeuwisse said.

“You do need to rest but only for a couple of days, then start to work your way back to normal life. And if you’re not better in a relatively short period of time then to seek treatment because there are aspects of this injury that are quite treatable.

“One that relates to that is we’ve defined what a concussion is and we’ve partly defined what it’s not,” Meeuwisse added. “There may be a neck injury, a whiplash injury, a balance injury, an injury with the eye-movement patterns that are quite [agreeable] to rehab and there are good signs there that show early rehab is really effective. So it’s a more treatable injury than we might have thought in the past.”

While concussion sufferers are being told to be cautiously active, it is now advised that kids may take four weeks to fully recover.

Dr. Carolyn Emery, a professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology, and Dr. Kathryn Schneider, an assistant professor, contributed to the document, which was designed to help health-care providers dealing with concussed adults and children. The primary message is Recognize and Remove. To help with the recognition process, adults are being asked to carry a pocket card called a Concussion Recognition Tool, which outlines what to look for and do.

“The new tools created from this consensus are designed to assist parents, coaches, officials and players to identify athletes with a potential concussion and remove the athlete from further risk of injury,” Emery said in a news release.

While there was consensus movement in the area of treatment, there was none when it came to linking concussions to degenerative brain diseases.

As Meeuwisse acknowledged, “There’s still no scientific evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship between concussions and degenerative problems. The jury is still out on that one. There’s lots of good research going on but nothing conclusive.”

The consensus document is being supported by the International Olympic Committee, the International Ice Hockey Federation, the International Federation for Equestrian Sports, World Rugby and FIFA.

Medical Life Sciences | In-home Occupational Therapy Reduces Depression Symptoms in Patients with Impaired Vision

Johns Hopkins researchers report that in-home occupational therapy appears to reduce the rate and severity of depression in people at higher risk for the disorder because of seriously impaired vision.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says older adults in the United States are already at an increased risk of depression as their health and social lives change. Vision-impairing diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration, contribute to these changes for an estimated 1.6 million Americans.

The new study, described March 8, in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, used measures obtained from the previous Low Vision Depression Prevention Trial in Age-Related Macular Degeneration (VITAL) study to conclude that low-vision patients who improve in their day-to-day functions, such as cooking, reading mail or using a computer, through at-home training with an occupational therapist have less severe symptoms of depression than similar patients who did not train with an occupational therapist.

“Our goal for this study was to see if occupational therapy was a better investment than supportive therapy in preventing depression in low-vision patients,” says Ashley Deemer, O.D., instructor of ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The study was based on information originally gathered for the VITAL study at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and included data on 188 patients with age-related macular degeneration. The patients’ average age was 84, and 70.2 percent of the patients were women. The patients had an average visual acuity of 20/96, meaning that the average person in this study could see an object 20 feet away, while someone with normal vision could see the same object at 96 feet. All patients also reported borderline depressive symptoms, scoring greater than five on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, a clinical survey used to estimate depression risk. In this survey, a score of zero is an indication that the patient has no depression or is at a low risk, and a score of 20 or higher marks a patient as at risk for severe depression.

After enrollment in the study, all patients visited a low vision rehabilitation optometrist and filled out a questionnaire designed to assess the importance and difficulty of daily activities, such as cooking, driving, pleasure reading and using a computer.

Patients were then divided into two treatment groups — an occupational therapy group and a supportive therapy group. The group of patients receiving occupational therapy met with an occupational therapist for six one-hour sessions in their homes. Utilizing tools like magnifying glasses, electronic devices and computer programs, the occupational therapist helped train patients to find new ways to achieve the tasks patients had ranked as both important and difficult.

“For example, if a patient had difficulty reading his or her mail, the therapist would use a magnification device to train and practice with the patient until he or she could successfully read the mail,” says Deemer.

The supportive therapy group acted as a control group for comparison. These patients met with a social worker for six one-hour sessions of talk therapy, which emphasized personal expression about loss and disability. In essence, the researchers say, this group got attention and empathetic support but not specific occupational therapy directed to improve their ability to function.

Four months after treatment, the researchers followed up with the patients in the study. Before treatment, the occupational therapy group’s average PHQ-9 score was 5.5, and the supportive therapy group’s average score was 5.6, placing both groups at the borderline of having a depressive disorder. After re-administering the questionnaire after treatment, the researchers found that the occupational therapy patient group’s average score decreased to 4.62 and the supportive therapy’s score decreased to 4.54.

At this follow-up, the researchers found that 26 percent of the supportive therapy patients reported that their depression symptoms worsened, while only 12 percent of the occupational therapy patients reported worsening symptoms. In total, these data show that while both forms of therapy decreased depression in patients, the group that received occupational therapy reduced its risk of depression by much more.

Comprehensive low vision rehabilitative services typically incorporate specialized care from an optometrist and other rehabilitation therapists, including occupational therapists. Because the VITAL study was not originally designed to distinguish the differences among these particular low-vision rehabilitation services, Deemer says one limitation of her findings is the researchers were unable to measure visual function improvements from occupational therapy services alone. Rather, the effects on visual function seen here are the result of comprehensive low vision rehabilitative care, including services given by both the optometrist and the occupational therapist.

Deemer says the costs associated with occupational therapy are often covered by Medicare, but such services appear to be underutilized.

“Many caregivers and patients may not realize how prevalent depression is among people with low vision, and our duty as health care providers is to raise awareness of the problem and the availability of help,” says Deemer. “It is good practice not only to refer low vision patients to a mental health expert, but to also suggest low vision rehabilitation and occupational therapy, which could have a huge impact on our patients’ lives.”

CBC News | Mentally Stimulating Brain Games May Delay Dementia Onset

Longevity expert suggests doing something ‘engaging and fun’ to keep the mind sharp

Thomson Reuters Posted: Feb 01, 2017 12:05 PM ET Last Updated: Feb 01, 2017 12:05 PM ET

Older people who engage in mentally stimulating activities later in life may have a lower risk of developing mild cognitive impairment than their peers who don’t challenge their minds, a study suggests.

For adults 70 and older without cognitive problems, playing games was associated with a 22 per cent reduced risk of what’s known as new-onset mild cognitive impairment, a condition that can happen before age-related declines in brain function give way to full-blown dementia.

Working on crafts was tied to a 28 per cent lower risk of mild cognitive impairment, computer use was linked to 30 per cent smaller odds and social activities were associated with 23 per cent decreased risk, the study also found.

“Mentally stimulating activities perhaps in combination with known healthy lifestyles such as exercise are simple and inexpensive activities that can potentially protect people against the development of mild cognitive impairment,” said senior study author Dr. Yonas E. Geda, a psychiatry and neurology researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona.

To see how different activities might influence the odds of developing impairments, researchers examined data on 1,929 adults age 70 and older who didn’t have any cognitive problems at the outset.

They evaluated participants every 15 months. Half of their subjects stayed in the study for more than four years.

In surveys, participants reported how often they did various activities. Researchers then compared the risk of new-onset mild cognitive impairment based on whether people did activities at least once or twice a week or no more than two or three times a month.

At the start of the study, half of the participants were at least 77 years old.

By the end of the study, 456 people had developed new-onset mild cognitive impairment, according to a report in JAMA Neurology.

Researchers took a closer look at a subset of 512 people who had an increased risk of cognitive decline because they carried a version of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene that is a risk factor for mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s dementia.

For carriers of the high-risk APOE gene, only computer use and social activities were associated with a decreased risk of mild cognitive impairment.

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to test whether or how different activities might directly prevent or delay the onset of cognitive decline, the authors note.

Some previous research has found that repeating familiar activities, even challenging ones, may not necessarily be enough to ward off cognitive decline, said Dr. Denise Park, a longevity researcher at the University of Texas in Dallas who wasn’t involved in the current study.

Playing games or socializing at home may not protect the brain against decline, but devoting several hours a week over several months to learning new activities may be associated with better brain function, Park said by email.

“Our research suggests mentally demanding, novel tasks like quilting or learning photography are worthwhile,” Park added. 

“Learning how to use a computer and many apps” also helped.Her advice to elderly people who want to keep their mind sharp: “Do something that is engaging and fun for you that you want to spend time on.”

Warm Aquatic Program Expanding!

We have some exciting news for you all!

Thank you everyone for your current or past interest in JR Rehab’s Warm Aquatic Therapy Program. Due to popular demand and high volume of inquiry for the program, we are now expanding our classes to 3 time slots, every Monday and Friday!

The course will continue to run for 4 weeks (8 classes) at Peace Arch Hospital – Weatherby Pool. The next round of classes will start on Monday, February 6th – Monday, March 6th. 

Please note: Monday, February 13th is a holiday (Family Day) and there will be no classes. 

Class schedule times listed below: 

  • 9:30am – 10:15am
  • 10:15am – 11:00am
  • 11:00am – 11:45am 

 

How to register?
Please call the JR Rehab office at 604 254 0444 or email info@jrrehab.ca. When registering, please have payment information ready (Visa, MasterCard etc.), as we require this information to reserve your spot for the program. In the near future, registration will be available online on our JR Rehab website. If you have any questions or inquiry more information, please don’t hesitate to give us a call.

Register now as classes tend to fill up pretty quickly! Each time slot only holds a maximum of 6 participants, therefore spots are not always guaranteed.

Hope to see you there!

JR Rehab Services Inc. now offers Comprehensive Driver Evaluations

JR Rehab Services Inc. has opened a dedicated clinic in Langley to perform Comprehensive Driver Evaluations.

A Comprehensive Driver Evaluation is an off and on-road assessment of an individual’s ability to safely perform the required components of driving, including physical, cognitive, perceptual and behavioral aspects.

This evaluation is necessary when experienced drivers are questioned about their ability to safely perform this complex task following a diagnosis of physical, neurological or psychosocial significance.

They will be performed by Maureen Woodward, JR Rehab Services Inc. Occupational Therapist with a Graduate Certificate in Driving Rehabilitation, in partnership with RoadSafetyBC and Certified Driving Instructors.

A Comprehensive Driver Evaluation can also benefit novice drivers by determining their ability to learn driving skills and providing recommendations for driver training programs.

 

Reclaim Your Ability™ Be Independent

 

Make a Referral

 

At Home Physio with JR Rehab

JR Rehab Services Inc. offer at home physiotherapy throughout the Lower Mainland allowing patients to receive one to one treatment within the comfort and security of their own home.

A dedicated team of physiotherapists is available to assist patients in managing acute and chronic conditions, assessing readiness for active rehab programs, optimizing functional independence and physical performance, rehabilitating injury and effects of disease or disability and preventing reoccurrence, re-injury or functional decline.

“We believe in an accessible, community based approach to rehabilitation and health services,” said JR Rehab Services Inc. founder, Ricardo Nuno.

“By giving patients the option to receive treatment at home, we are helping those who are physically unable to leave their home during recovery, have transportation issues or who would simply feel more comfortable having treatment within their home environment,” said Ricardo.

 

Reclaim Your Ability™

 

Make a Referral

 

Teens with concussion history may be more likely to use drugs, alcohol

Dr. Michael Cusimano, a neurosurgeon and researcher in Toronto, said it's alarming how early students mix a head trauma with alcohol or drug use. (Yuri Markarov/St. Michael's Hospital/Canadian Press)

Dr. Michael Cusimano, a neurosurgeon and researcher in Toronto, said it’s alarming how early students mix a head trauma with alcohol or drug use. (Yuri Markarov/St. Michael’s Hospital/Canadian Press)

It’s possible some teens with a traumatic brain injury turn to alcohol or drugs to deal with symptoms

The Canadian Press Posted: Nov 27, 2014 10:40 AM ET Last Updated: Nov 27, 2014 10:50 AM ET

Teenagers who have suffered a concussion or other traumatic brain injury are more likely to report using alcohol and drugs compared to peers with no history of such an injury, researchers have found.

Use of non-prescribed tranquilizers and opioids as well as illicit drugs like cannabis, cocaine and even crystal meth was two to four times higher among Ontario high school students who had experienced a traumatic brain injury (TBI) than classmates who hadn’t had a serious blow to the head, the researchers report in a study published Wednesday in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation.

Use of non-prescribed tranquilizers and opioids as well as illicit drugs like cannabis, cocaine and even crystal meth was two to four times higher among Ontario high school students who had experienced a traumatic brain injury (TBI) than classmates who hadn’t had a serious blow to the head, the researchers report in a study published Wednesday in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation.

The study, which analyzed data from the 2011 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, found that one in five of the Grade 9 to 12 students reported they’d had a previous TBI.

Besides having a higher rate of alcohol and drug use, students in this group were also 2.5 times more likely to have smoked one or more cigarettes daily during the previous year and nearly twice as likely to have engaged in binge drinking — consuming five or more alcoholic drinks in one sitting — in the previous month.

“It’s a really toxic combination when you have the two together,” co-principal researcher Dr. Michael Cusimano said of mixing a head trauma with alcohol or drug use. “And it’s alarming how early this is occurring. This is Grade 9 to Grade 12.”

“We know that people who have alcohol or substance use problems don’t recover as well from a brain injury,” said Cusimano, a neurosurgeon at St Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. “They can’t participate as well in the rehab, and they don’t recover their original abilities as well as people who have not been using drugs and alcohol.”

As well, adolescence is an age when the brain is still developing — and having a TBI and exposing the brain to the effects of alcohol or drugs may “greatly impair” that development, he said.

Researchers defined a TBI as any hit or blow to the head that resulted in a student being knocked unconscious for at least five minutes or spending at least one night in hospital due to symptoms associated with the injury. Some of these brain injuries could have been classified as concussions, which are mild to moderate forms of brain injury.

The study looked at reported TBIs and substance use among Ontario students, using responses from a representative sample of 6,383 respondents who took part in the survey. Data allowed researchers to determine substance use habits and TBI history, but not which came first — the brain injury or the alcohol and/or drug use.

“People with these injuries may be using these substances more, but the effects of the injury may be such that it may predispose them to use the substances more often as well, ” said Dr. Robert Mann, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health who co-led the study.

“On the other hand, we also know that people who are substance users may be more likely to have these kinds of injuries,” said Mann. “The classic example is alcohol. Alcohol impairs psychomotor performance, so you’re more likely to have an injury, perhaps more likely to have a head injury.”

Injuries more common than thought

Many recreational drugs also can affect physical performance and judgment, setting up a person for potential harm, he said.

In any given year, about five per cent of teenagers will suffer a concussion or other brain injury, and about 60 per cent of them will occur while participating in sports.

“What we found in this research is that these injuries are more common than we would have thought … and that also there does appear to be a cluster with these injuries of problematic behaviour, substance abuse and mental health concerns,” said Mann.

“And we know that substance use problems and mental health problems in adolescence can result in problems later on in life.”

Concussions and other brain injuries can cause dizziness, confusion, memory loss, headache, nausea or vomiting.

Depending on the severity of the injury, symptoms can persist for some time. Concentration and the ability to remember may be impaired; the person can be irritable, depressed and have marked personality changes; sensitivity to noise and light, along with disturbed sleep, are also common.

Cusimano said it’s possible some teens with a traumatic brain injury turn to alcohol or drugs to deal with such symptoms, trying to make themselves feel better by self-medicating.

“I think parents, coaches, teachers and guidance counsellors need to be aware of this toxic combination of drugs, alcohol and brain injury, and they need to at least inquire about [them],” he said.

“So if they have a TBI, they need to inquire about drugs and alcohol. And if they use drugs and alcohol, they need to inquire about brain injury. Both things need attention.”

 

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