Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation: Inpatient vs. Outpatient

Physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) is a medical specialty that helps to restore movement and ability following an injury, illness, or major surgery.  

At Gillette Children’s, our pediatric rehabilitation experts care for children and teens who experience a loss of functioning due to disabilities like cerebral palsy, sports injury, traumatic brain or spine injury, and following complex procedures such as a selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) or single-event multilevel surgery (SEMLS).

Children and teens who find physical medicine and rehabilitation beneficial include those who have: 

• Amputations or limb loss
• Birth brachial plexus injury
• Brain injury, spinal cord injury, and related neurotrauma
• Cerebral palsy
• Chronic pain
• A complex movement disorder that needs interventions such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) or intrathecal baclofen pump placement
• Major surgery, such as selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) or single-event multilevel surgery (SEMLS), used to treat neuromuscular and orthopedic conditions
• Spina bifida

While inpatient and outpatient PM&R share many similarities, the main difference between the two is the intensity of the rehabilitative process.

Inpatient physical medicine and rehabilitation at Gillette Children’s is recommended (and sometimes required) for pediatric patients who will benefit from the intensive, coordinated rehabilitation services of an expert rehab team in a hospital setting when recovery at home is determined by our experts to be inadequate for safe and proper recovery. An inpatient rehabilitation stay typically lasts several weeks and focuses on intensive, targeted treatments meant to restore key areas of functioning during hospitalization.

Outpatient physical medicine and rehabilitation is what you participate in when you attend regular appointments for physical, occupational, or speech therapy while living at home and going about your regular life. Outpatient physical medicine and rehabilitation is ideal for children and teens whose functioning has not been significantly reduced by an illness or injury, who can gradually recover a loss of functioning or benefit from ongoing or short-term rehabilitation therapy to manage a lifelong complex condition. 

Physical therapy is just one part of physical medicine and rehabilitation. While physical therapy is often a key part of a rehabilitation plan, “physical medicine and rehabilitation” is an umbrella term for the medical rehabilitation process—which also encompasses hospitalization and surgery.

Occupational therapy, speech-language therapy, and other rehabilitation therapies all fall under the physical medicine and rehabilitation umbrella and are key components of a successful care plan.