What does a rehabilitation nurse do?

A rehabilitation nurse assists patients in recovering from illness or injury by coordinating and providing specialized care, requiring skills in patient assessment, collaboration with healthcare teams, and the ability to navigate both physical and emotional challenges, with the rewarding outcome of helping individuals regain independence and improve their quality of life.

A rehabilitation nurse specializes in providing care and support to patients recovering from illness, injury, or surgery. They work with individuals undergoing rehabilitation to regain independence and improve their physical and mental well-being. This includes assisting with therapy, monitoring progress, educating patients and their families, and collaborating with healthcare teams to develop personalized care plans.

The rehabilitation nurse is a nurse who specializes in helping people with disabilities and chronic illness attain optimal function, health, and adapt to an altered lifestyle. Rehabilitation nurses assist patients in their move toward independence by setting realistic goals and treatment plans.

challenges, rehabilitation nurses are able to find great rewards in seeing the progress and improvement of the patient and their family, helping them achieve their goals, building meaningful relationships with the patient and their family, learning new skills, and making a difference in the lives of the patient and their family

A rehabilitation nurse helps guide a patient back to as close as possible a patients quality of life to what it was previously. Patients who are in this setting may have had serious injuries, such as falls, traumatic brain injuries or serious car accidents. The nurse and staff take this into account and help formulate a plan that best fits that patients needs.

To be a rehabilitation nurse, you need an RN license, a BSN degree, and preferably experience in a rehabilitation setting. Advancing in this field often involves earning a CRRN certification from the ARN, requiring an exam and specific practice criteria. Essential skills include knowledge of rehabilitation, patient care assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Strong communication, critical thinking, compassion, and teamwork are also crucial for success in this role.

To be a rehabilitation nurse, you need an RN license, a BSN degree, and preferably experience in a rehabilitation setting. Advancing in this field often involves earning a CRRN certification from the ARN, requiring an exam and specific practice criteria. Essential skills include knowledge of rehabilitation, patient care assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Strong communication, critical thinking, compassion, and teamwork are also crucial for success in this role.

If you are serious about becoming a rehabilitation nurse, your first step is to work closely with the therapists. I have learned a wealth of information and gained immeasurable experience this way. I have never encountered a therapist who did not want to share and teach. I've learned everything from body mechanics, swallowing interventions to post acute techniques. What you learn hands on with the therapists will last far longer than anything you might read in a book.

In rehabilitation, allied health clinicians work with a multi-disciplinary approach. This means that each clinician has a role and scope of practice, but it has to integrate with what other clinicians on the team are doing. The best rehabilitation nurses I have worked with have been amazing at a few things: motivating patients to participate, generating a strong sense of common goals within the clinical team, keeping everyone who is involved in care well-informed, and teaching other clinicians about the big picture of patient care.