key: cord-0878180-znk08njk
authors: Raj, Vishwa S.
title: COVID-19: We All Have a Role
date: 2020-05-25
journal: Arch Phys Med Rehabil
DOI: 10.1016/j.apmr.2020.04.014
sha: d551d14ada4231057122703e42c844bdf2e726ec
doc_id: 878180
cord_uid: znk08njk

nan

Thank you for publishing the article "How Should the Rehabilitation Community Prepare for 2019-nCoV?" in a recent issue. 1 The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis has been daunting! For many of us, the pace at which we have been receiving, interpreting, and applying the most current clinical knowledge to our settings of practice has been unprecedented. Day by day and hour by hour, experts in the areas of infection prevention and control continue to adjust recommendations in an attempt to protect the public, patients, and providers. However, as social distancing and infection control measure have become our new normal, 2 rehabilitation professionals from all disciplines have been asked to reconsider the framework by which they deliver care and to adjust their modes of care, which previously relied on close personal and physical contact, in an attempt to maximize functioning and quality of life.

In August 2005, I was a postgraduate year 3 resident in Houston when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans. I experienced first-hand the effect of a catastrophe on a community and its health care system. Approximately 250,000 people were relocated to Houston in a matter of days, with the Astrodome becoming one of many makeshift shelters for individuals and their families. The scene was overwhelming, and throughout the early stages there was anxiety, confusion, and fear from the entire public. However, as a community we found a way to persevere. One of the first actions to help ground me was watching several of my attending physicians volunteer to immediately assess the situation and provide care for evacuees in the locations where it was most needed. 3, 4 This was a call to action, and our attending physicians showed us how we as rehabilitation professionals could still have a positive effect during the most dire of circumstances. Now, COVID-19 has intimidated even the best of us. However, if the past is any indication, we will endure. I have been so impressed not only with our own teammates, who have risen to meet this challenge, but also with the rehabilitation providers across the country who are making contributions and recommendations to help our clinicians, educators, researchers, and administrators address the immediate and long-term needs of our communities and patients. We have been forced to think about the role of rehabilitation in a far different manner, whether it be the ability to integrate new virtual technologies to meet the needs of patients in the safety of their environments, development of protocols helping to convert inpatient postacute care settings to medical and surgical acute care units, or collaboration among multiple medical specialties, including physical medicine and rehabilitation, to provide truly interdisciplinary care to those who are currently most vulnerable.

I am so thankful to all of you who are have taken on the responsibility of addressing the needs of our patients and communities by meeting this crisis head on. The experiences we have today will put all of us, and everyone we encounter moving forward, in a better place tomorrow. We will make it through this together.

Until we can see each other again in person, stay safe, stay strong, and stay sanguine.

Carolinas Rehabilitation Charlotte, NC.

Disclosures: none.

How should the rehabilitation community prepare for 2019-nCoV?

Navigating coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in physiatry: a CAN report for inpatient rehabilitation facilities

Impairment and disability in the Astrodome after Hurricane Katrina: lessons learned about the needs of the disabled after large population movements

Physical medicine and rehabilitation conditions in the Astrodome clinic after Hurricane Katrina

/20/$36 -see front matter Ó 2020 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation journal homepage: www.archives-pmr.org Archives of