October 29, 2009/- Imagine learning to use your kitchen all over again – how you rinse your dishes, cook your food, stock your shelves with groceries. That’s what some patients at Providence Care’s St. Mary’s of the Lake Hospital do as part of their rehabilitation. Recovering from brain trauma, spinal cord injuries, amputations and strokes, they learn how to use specially adapted appliances and countertops and how to navigate around a kitchen with walkers and wheelchairs in the Activities of Daily Living (ADL) room.

The ADL room is specially designed space that gives patients the opportunity to learn to independently manage everyday tasks from personal grooming to preparing a meal. Thanks to donors, the ADL room has recently been given a $75,000 renovation to include two, new full equipped kitchens that meet a variety of treatment needs.

“It’s not a simulated environment, it’s a real kitchen. Real food is prepared. Clients enjoy that. It’s very meaningful,” says Lori Everett, Occupational Therapist on the Stroke and Acquired Brain Injury Programs.

Using the kitchen is an important part of the patients’ treatment, she says. It helps them learn new skills, it teaches them safety and prepares them for a return home to the community. “We teach new skills and new ways of doing things. We might teach how to use a device that will simplify the task for them or we might select a different cooking method to help them conserve their energy or they may need to learn how adaptive equipment like a different kind of stove or a different kind of sink works.”

The ADL room features two very different kitchens. One looks very much like the kitchen you have at home, complete with stove, fridge and cabinets. This is the one that people who have greater mobility use. The other is designed for people in wheelchairs. It has no cabinets under the counters so people in wheelchairs can wheel right up and prepare their food. The oven has been raised in height and the kitchen sink is more shallow than normal to better suit a person in a wheelchair. There’s a “pull down” cabinet that lowers itself to wheelchair height so patients can get a can of this or a package of that. And the fixtures feature different knobs so patients can try out different grips, a critically important issue for someone with limited ability in their hands.

Cooking is more than just making something to eat. For some patients it is about relearning how to do something they used to love. For others it is something they need to learn to be independent again. And for some, such as those with brain injuries, the very act of cooking is therapy itself. Part of their recovery is learning to plan and organize things again. Preparing a meal is an excellent way to do that.

The ADL room has been a part of the extension built at St. Mary’s of the Lake in 1972. But the original design didn’t incorporate any wheelchair accessibility. That has forced staff to improvise over the years. Now, with the generosity of donors, that has changed.