Local & Global Outreach

The department partners with professional colleagues to increase both our local and global outreach. Below are highlights from our growing effort to expand the benefits of rehabilitation medicine and education. With your support, we can help many others experience better quality of life. We also continue to participate in a local program that benefits patients globally, through our involvement with MEDworld.

Community Outreach

Our outreach to the community benefits patients at different milestones on the journey to recovery. We publish an outreach newsletter, the Rehabilitation Reader, three times a year for the benefit of patients, caregivers, medical specialists and others. Additionally, the following support groups meet regularly:

Brain Injury Support Group

The UNC Brain Injury Support Group's mission is to provide support, education and advocacy for survivors of brain injury as well as for their families, friends and caregivers. This group meets on the third Wednesday of each month.

Meeting Place and Time: UNC Wellness Center, Meadowmont, 1:00-2:00 PM

For more information, call 919.966.9501.

Stroke Support Group

This group, which meets the second Wednesday of each month, hosts speakers to address various topics in stroke recovery for survivors, family, friends, and caregivers.

Meeting Place and Time: UNC Wellness Center, Meadowmont, 1:00-2:00 PM

Some of our meetings include downloadable notes. We invite you to browse these helpful presentations:

• home health for seniors recovering from stroke
• medical options for prevention and treatment of stroke
• spasticity after stroke
• music therapy
  
• high blood pressure management
• slide show summarizing stroke and recent clinical trials

For more information, email Antje Thiessen or call 919.966.8044.

Peer Mentors

In addition, our department benefits from Peer Mentors. These volunteers motivate patients during their healing process in the Inpatient Rehabilitation Center. Read their words of wisdom on our extended resources page, our web supplement to our stroke issue of the Rehabilitation Reader.

Aphasia Support Group

Do you or a loved one have speech or language problems resulting from a stroke or other brain injury? Join this group, which meets weekly on Mondays from 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM in Conference Room A, 7th Floor (Rehabilitation Center), UNC Memorial Hospital. The group offers conversation and companionship. For more information, contact: Denise Caignon, MS, CCC-SLP, at the UNC Center for Aphasia and Related Disorders: 919.843.3699.

Statewide Outreach

The department has two telemedicine programs, which serve as wonderful examples of our statewide outreach.

TelAbility

TelAbility provides telemedicine consultation to patients across North Carolina, in their own communities. The program, which uses internet-based video conferencing, enhances communication, care coordination and professional education for parents and care providers of young children with special needs. Joshua Alexander, MD, directs this program.

The WATCH Project, an initiative of TelAbility, recently received $45,000 to upgrade two videoconference systems to large screen units, thereby allowing more people to participate and providing a higher quality viewing experience. The funding was provided by Wake County Smart Start upon recognition of the WATCH Project's success in strengthening the early intervention network in Wake County. WATCH Project activities such as video-clinics (which improve care coordination among a child's care team) and professional development sessions (which have improved and enhanced the leadership development and professional competency of early intervention professionals) help to meet Wake County Smart Start's goals to increase identification and connection to early intervention services for children with special needs and increase the knowledge base of early intervention service providers. Congratulations to TelAbility for receiving this unsolicited grant!

STAR Project

The STAR Project, for which Patricia Gregory, MD, will be the primary investigator (PI), has received a three-year grant from the Duke Endowment Fund for $349,995.

The STAR Project will pilot a stroke telemedicine video-conferencing consult service with a rural community hospital in Robeson County. This part of the state has the highest stroke prevalence, but limited stroke recovery services. Dr. Gregory will provide consult recommendations on secondary stroke prevention, stroke rehabilitation and caregiver support during the acute hospital stay, and at 30 and 90 days post stroke. For more about the program, see the STAR educational flyer.

National Presentations & Honors

Our faculty regularly present at national conferences, and have been recognized with national awards and fellowships. We encourage you to browse our faculty pages as well as news and features columns (on the right) for highlights.

International Outreach

Global Partnership in Medical Rehabilitation

Read about our Global Partnership in Medical Rehabilitation, including outreach in Peru.

International Visiting Scholars Program

The department hosts visiting faculty from around the world. In past years we have hosted visiting faculty from Slovenia, Colombia, Brazil, Japan and Korea.

Current visiting scholars include the following:

Jae-ki Ahn, MD

Current Position: Associate Professor, Dept. of PM&R, Sanggye Paik Hospital, Inje University, South Korea
Interests: rehabilitation education and research

Yong-Man Cho, MPA, MA

Current Position: Director, Fiscal Policy Division, Ministry of Strategy and Finance, South Korea
Interests: cost effectiveness of rehabilitation

Kwang Jae Lee, MD

Current Position: Director of Rehabilitation Medicine at Daejeon Rehabilitation Hospital, Daejeon, Korea
Interests: rehabilitation medicine

Last year's visiting scholars welcomed Tai Ryoon Han, MD, PhD, president of the Korean Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine, during his visit to UNC PM&R. See our news item for details.

For more information about the International Visiting Scholars Program, email Steven Tomaro or call 919.966.0966.