By the light of dusk, a wiry sheep and her unruly leash was all it took to land 86-year-old Marie Hauser on Roosevelt Care Center’s doorstep.
“She knocked me down,” said Hauser of “Alice,” a sometimes clumsy, albeit beloved family pet. “I couldn’t move. I wanted to, I just couldn’t.”
Hauser soon found herself on a stretcher en route to Bayshore Medical Center, where doctors zeroed in on a broken hip and wrist.
“There was no way of putting it back broken,” she said, alluding to a hip replacement. “I knocked the ball joint out of socket.”
Following her surgery, Hauser’s physicians recommended she begin her recovery at Roosevelt Care Center at Old Bridge, Middlesex County’s newest long-term and rehabilitation center.
Nestled in a rustic township hillside near Texas Road, Hauser joined the subacute wing last summer to begin her journey back to health.
There, she was met by the staff of medical professionals, along with a team of dedicated rehabilitation specialists from Aegis’ Therapies.
“It was a nice, welcoming atmosphere; it was immaculately clean, and the floor was strictly for rehab,” Hauser said.
In only one year, thousands like Hauser have flocked to Roosevelt’s rehabilitation program in both Edison and Old Bridge, to take advantage of their tailor-made “Freedom through Functionality Program,” which accounts for each patient’s injury, diagnosis and weaknesses to create a targeted recovery plan.
“We treat everything from the more common injuries like joint replacements and fractures, to more serious maladies like head injury and amputation,” said Roosevelt Care Centers Director of Rehabilitation Steven Fudenna. “Personal goals, mobility, pain, strength, flexibility and quality of life — these are all elements we need to consider in our program.”
Tapping into Nautilus equipment, which is geared toward intensive strength training, many geriatric patients have discovered quicker recovery times at Roosevelt with therapies that include: physical, occupational, speech, wound, intravenous, respiratory, post-surgical, post-cardiac, ostomy, tracheostomy and enteral feeding.
Add to the list a higher average number of registered therapists, all of whom are trained on this extensive equipment line, and Roosevelt has all the makings for a top-seed rehabilitation program.
“It’s something we, as a company, find more effective with patient recovery,” Fudenna said.
In addition to on-site care, Fudenna emphasizes that the details on a safe transition home are just as pivotal to Roosevelt’s programming.
“We’ve had patients take videos or facetime their homes, so we’ll have a good idea of what the bathroom set-up is or what they’ll be doing in their kitchen or what it is their stairs look like,” Fudenna said.
In Hauser’s case, staff went as far as seeing that her cane was the right measurement for her height, before she walked out of Roosevelt — on her own and only one month after being admitted.
“I healed beautifully,” said Hauser, who’s now a picture of health and back on her family farm with Alice. “They never pushed me and they were right on target.”
For more information on Roosevelt Care Centers, log onto www.RooseveltCareCenter.com or call Admissions at 732-360-9839.
The public is welcomed to stop into the Edison facility at 118 Parsonage Road or the Old Bridge facility at 1133 Marlboro Road, as well.