Panel on Heart and Lung Transplant Patients, Part 2

RUSK Insights on Rehabilitation Medicine

Welcome back to this special two-part series.

Part 1 covered various topics, including: pulmonary conditions that could lead to the need for a transplant; if the recent resurgence of the coronavirus and its continued display of new emerging variants has affected the ability to furnish care for patients; kinds of contributions physiatry, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology clinicians can make in preparing patients for transplantation and in optimizing function; whether rehabilitation settings differ based on the kinds of health problems that patients have; and prevention of the occurrence of hospital readmissions.

Part 2 covers many new areas, including: how patients requiring rehabilitation services may differ according to personal characteristics, such as age and how such differences are taken into account when providing treatment; kinds of physiological changes patients can experience post-transplantation; prevention of the risk of infection; steps taken to deal with the issue of nonadherence of recommended treatment protocols; use of rehabilitation notebooks and peer support groups; comparison of telehealth and face-to-face interactions with patients; and kinds of key rehabilitation questions to address.

Megan Carroll is a Board Certified Clinical Specialist in Geriatric physical therapy. She has been an intensive care unit physical therapist working at NYU Langone Health since 2015.

Camille Magsombol works on developing occupational therapy programs to support patients' successful health management of their chronic diseases, including medication management.

Christina Moriarty's work focuses on speech/swallow assessment and treatment with head and neck cancer as well patients in the surgical intensive care unit, including those with heart and lung transplants.

Sofia Prilik is a physiatrist who serves as clinical director of inpatient cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation, with a focus on inpatient rehabilitation of lung and heart transplant patients.