Pate Rehabilitation’s Dr. Carlos Marquez de la Plata and Dr. Marlene Vega, joined colleague Dr. Aida Saldivar from Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center to present a talk on neurorehabilitation disparities at the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) conference.
Their topic, “Addressing Disparities in Neurorehabilitation: A Framework for Cultural and Linguistic Competence in Treatment and Research” suggests that underlying cultural inequalities within the treatment setting may be implicated in treatment outcomes. Neurorehabilitation disparities may be unconscious but their significance can’t be ignored.
Dr. Marquez de la Plata’s interest in neurorehabilitation disparities has led to research on how cultural variations in the rehabilitation setting may affect outcomes. The ACRM talk focused on how to improve brain injury outcomes by attention to cultural signals. Language as a conveyor of meaning is the method of treatment delivery as therapists both demonstrate and explain verbally the goal of a patient’s activity.