Shepherd Center’s Beyond Therapy® expands to Tennessee thanks to gift from the WareCentre™

To meet growing consumer interest in innovative rehabilitation therapies, Shepherd Center has expanded Beyond Therapy® to a new satellite location in Franklin, Tenn., just south of Nashville. The facility, formerly the WareCentre™, opened in early September 2010.

WareCentre™ founders Scot and Sharon Ware of Franklin recently gifted the 10,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility and its high-tech therapeutic equipment to Shepherd Center.

The Beyond Therapy® facility is the first satellite clinic to be launched by the Atlanta-based Shepherd Center, which is ranked among the top 10 rehabilitation hospitals in the nation for spinal cord injury and brain injury rehabilitation. Each year hundreds of people from across the country travel to Shepherd for medical treatment or to take part in its research program.

“The WareCentre™ made the gift because we want to expand the facility’s patient population, and Shepherd’s expertise and network of physician contacts will help make that possible more quickly,” says Scot Ware, who underwent rehabilitation at Shepherd for a massive stroke he experienced in 2005. Scot is now walking and driving again and has returned to a fairly normal lifestyle.

During his rehabilitation at Shepherd, Scot was impressed with the expertise and technology Shepherd provided – particularly a robotic locomotor training device called the Lokomat®. So the Wares founded the WareCentre™ to fulfill a mission similar to Beyond Therapy® – to restore hope and offer new possibilities for people with neurological conditions by combining innovative equipment and expert staff for optimal recovery.

Beyond Therapy® is an intense, activity-based program that promotes improved health and wellness, as well as neurological recovery, for people with spinal cord injury, brain injury and other neuromuscular disorders. Shepherd Center started Beyond Therapy® in Atlanta in 2005. It has served more than 150 people from 20 states and four foreign countries. Beyond Therapy® has been so successful that it now has a two-year waiting list.

“We are excited to now be able to provide Beyond Therapy® services to a broader base of patients outside of Atlanta,” says Sarah Morrison, PT, who is directing the Tennessee facility. “Also, we hope to include our Tennessee patients in our research related to the activity-based therapy in the future.”

The Beyond Therapy® facility in Tennessee serves both adult and pediatric patients. Morrison says its goals are to:
• Offer a state-of-the-art program that focuses on neuromuscular recovery, as well as health and wellness across the lifespan;
• Promote continuous rehabilitation benefits that extend beyond the scope of traditional healthcare initiatives;
• Extend beyond the range of acute care and predetermined functional goals and continue the rehabilitation agenda by administering aggressive treatment through clinical research and experimental protocols to achieve a higher level of individual functionality.

Patients have access to the following state-of-the art equipment at the Beyond Therapy® facility in Tennessee:
• Lokomat® and Pediatric Lokomat® allow gait training of adults and children.
• Armeo® combines an adjustable arm support with augmented feedback and software that allows functional therapy exercise in a virtual reality environment.
• The Harness Rail System allows people to practice walking in an unrestricted environment and protects them from the possibility of a fall.
• Pneumex Pro-Vibe™ provides whole-body vibration training to improve strength, posture and decrease spasticity.
• The Biodex Balance System™ can help people evaluate and improve balance and neuromuscular control.
• The Keiser Functional Trainer® is multi-functional machine for a complete body workout; it offers hundreds of different exercises.
• The Impulse Trainer focuses on neuromuscular education and can be used by any age or level of ability.
• Giger MD® provides a gravity-eliminated environment, which decreases tone and allows for enhanced rhythmical limb movements.
• The Sci-Fit™ exercise machine offers a full-body workout.
• Dartfish video analysis software allows instant feedback and detailed analysis of key components of any movement.
• The Woodway Split-Belt Treadmill is a locomotion therapy tool that provides variable speed control of each leg independently.

Admissions criteria for Beyond Therapy® in Tennessee are:
• Spinal cord injury
• Traumatic brain injury
• Stroke
• Multiple sclerosis
• Cerebral Palsy
• Parkinson’s
• Age 5 and older