A place offering kind and compassionate care in an outpatient setting. A fun place to play. An inviting learning environment. Friends to help you do your best. These are things that every child needs. And for a child with special needs, these take on even more significance. At the Children's Hospital Rehabilitation Center, located at Pellissippi Parkway and Westland Drive off I-140 in West Knoxville, these elements and much more are part of the daily “routine” for children with a variety of special needs.

• The Rehab Center’s services
• The Rehab Center’s facility
• Directions to the Rehab Center

The Rehab Center’s services
A department of Children’s Hospital, the Rehabilitation Center provides physician-directed rehabilitation services to nearly 1,500 area children each year and has been serving the East Tennessee region’s special-needs children since 1947. The Rehabilitation Center understands a child's rehabilitation needs are different from an adult's, and every aspect of our services and program focuses on those unique needs. The center’s pediatric specialists in speech pathology, occupational and physical therapy, nursing, nutrition, clinical psychology and social work provide comprehensive, family centered evaluation, treatment and programming. The goal of all center programs is to work with children and their families so that potentials are developed and quality of life improved.

All Rehabilitation Center programs and services reflect a philosophy of care that offers a commitment to the whole child, recognizing his or her unique combination of characteristics and needs. The family centered environment promotes parent participation to integrate therapy goals into daily life. The center strives to help each child reach his or her greatest level of independence, maximizing quality of life and potential.

Who uses the services of Children's Rehabilitation Center?
The center helps children from birth to 21 years of age acquire or regain skills to perform age-appropriate activities. Some children may have mild developmental delays and just need some extra help. Other children may be recovering from an accident or injury and need to relearn skills or learn new ways to carry out regular activities. Some children are recovering from surgery or other kinds of treatment, while others have chronic, multiple handicapping conditions or disorders such as cerebral palsy, developmental delays, Down syndrome or muscular dystrophy.

Services and Programs:
Children's Corner is an outpatient medical day treatment program at the Children’s West campus at Pellissippi Parkway and Westland Drive. Children who need skilled nursing care and/or intensive therapy services participate in Children's Corner as an alternative to an extended inpatient hospital stay. Pediatric registered nurses and rehab techs work with therapists, physicians, parents and caregivers, social workers, nutritionists and other specialists to design an individual treatment plan. Children may attend Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (and even later on Tuesdays). A typical day includes nursing care, therapy, lunch and snacks, naptime, adaptive play and recreation, socialization and developmental stimulation.

Outpatient services are available at the Children’s West campus at Pellissippi Parkway and Westland Drive as well as at Children's Hospital. Parent training, family education, parent support groups, transportation and a summer day camp offer additional resources to children and their families.

Inpatient rehab services are provided at Children's Hospital for children with short-term or acute hospitalization needs.

Children whose medical conditions prohibit participation in outpatient services may receive rehab care in their own home through Children's Hospital Home Health Care.

The Children's Hospital Rehabilitation Center offers pediatric services in the following specialty areas:
• Speech Pathology: Oral motor and speech and language. Specialty areas include feeding and swallowing; articulation and fluency; augmentative communication and assistive technology; and modified barium-swallow studies.
• Occupational Therapy: Fine motor skills. Areas of specialty include sensory and perceptual processing; self care; motor planning and control; and functional and protective splinting.
• Physical Therapy: Gross motor skills. Specialty areas include splinting and casting; seating and mobility; neuromuscular re-education; gait training; and water therapy in the center’s own indoor pool.
• Social Work: Family support, information and resource referral services. Areas of emphasis include family participation; parent training; parent support groups; discharge planning; and assistance in obtaining related services such as transportation, advocacy or financial resources.
• Nutrition: Services focusing on calorie intake, eating habits and nourishment to promote optimal growth and health.

The facility provides a child-family-centered setting for the Rehab Center's wide range of services. A family education resource area, computer lab, therapeutic playground and individual treatment spaces all offer opportunities for expanded outpatient services.

The center offers much-expanded space for Children’s Corner, the Rehab Center’s day treatment program for medically fragile children. Children’s Corner increased its patient capacity from 15 to 26 children when the new center opened.

Other additions in the expanded facility include a parent conference room that serves as a place for family education programs and training. The parent conference room, which houses an extensive video library, can also be used for meetings with families, therapists, staff and others involved in each child’s care, as well as for confidential therapist/family meetings to discuss a child’s evaluation, treatment plan and progress.

Another feature is an assistive technology computer lab, which provides space and equipment for speech pathologists and occupational therapists to help children use technology for greater independence. Here, these medical professionals can use state-of-the-art computer technology to stimulate speech and language, promote hand-eye coordination and prepare the non-language child for computerized augmentative communication equipment. There was no space for either a parent conference room or a computer lab in the old Rehab facility.

The Rehab Center’s therapeutic playground provides handicapped-accessible opportunities for children to play with other children. Even more significantly, it allows children to build skills in independent movement with wheelchairs, crutches and walkers; practice upper-body and upper-extremity strength-building; develop balance and movement confidence; stimulate sensory processing skills; and participate in creative play, including art, games, drama and simple sports events.

The Rehab Center’s long-awaited therapy pool opened in February 2007. Thanks to generous donations from the Donald and Mary Gally estates, the Star 102.1 Radiothon and Ben Tipton of Tipton Pools, children with special needs now have an important new therapy resource in the form of this indoor therapy pool.

The center provided therapy in the City of Knoxville’s Adaptive Recreation Center pool on Dandridge Avenue from 1997 to 2007. While this was a wonderful resource, it was available on a very limited basis and located more than 20 miles from the center.

An addition was constructed on the Rehab Center campus to house the new therapy pool, which is now available daily for the center’s patients. Easier access to the pool means many more patients can participate in the benefits unique to a pool setting. Water therapy may improve functions such as moving, reaching and breathing. It also relaxes muscles and makes movement easier. Children and their parents enjoy this addition to the center’s wide array of services.

For more information on the services offered at the Children's Hospital Rehabilitation Center, call (865) 690-8961 or e-mail us.

Here are some helpful links for families of special needs children: National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities http://www.nichcy.org/ Exceptional Parent Magazine http://www.eparent.com