Shirley Ryan AbilityLab

This article reads like a press release or a news article and is largely based on routine coverage or sensationalism. Please with properly sourced content to meet Wikipedia's quality standards, event notability guideline, or encyclopedic content policy. (February 2021)

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
The front entrance to the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap
Geography
Location	Chicago, Illinois, United States
Organization
Type	Academic health science center
Affiliated university	Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Network	Northwestern Medicine
Services
History
Opened	1954
Links
Website	Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
Lists	Hospitals in Illinois

The Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), is a not-for-profit nationally ranked physical medicine and rehabilitation research hospital based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1954, the AbilityLab is designed for patient care, education, and research in physical medicine and rehabilitation. The AbilityLab specializes in rehabilitation for adults and children with the most severe, complex conditions ranging from traumatic brain and spinal cord injury to stroke, amputation and cancer-related impairment.^[1] Affiliated with Northwestern University, the hospital is located on the Northwestern Memorial Hospital campus and partners on research and medical efforts.^[2]

Since 1991, the hospital has remained the top ranked rehabilitation hospital in America by U.S. News & World Report.^[3][4] Applied research focuses particularly in the areas of neuroscience, bionic medicine, musculoskeletal medicine and technology transfer.

Upon opening in March 2017, its $550 million, 1.2-million-square-foot facility became the first “translational” research hospital in which clinicians, scientists, innovators and technologists work together in the same space.^[5]

History[]

Rehabilitation is a relatively new medical specialty, becoming certified as such in 1947.^[6] Immediately following World War II, which had a significant impact on the specialty of rehabilitation, General Omar Bradley, the head the Veterans Administration, recruited Dr. Paul Magnuson,^[7] a U.S. Army orthopaedic surgeon, who created the infrastructure for the VA to provide rehabilitation for veterans. Magnuson served until 1951 and, shortly thereafter, declared his vision to establish a medical rehabilitation hospital for American citizens.. With very modest philanthropic means, hen purchased a vacant printing building at 401 E. Ohio Street in Chicago, Ill., and a new organization was formally incorporated as the not-for-profit Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC). By the spring of 1953, the building was converted into a small rehabilitation hospital and began serving a limited number of outpatients.

In 1958, the building was renovated, enabling the hospital to serve inpatients. In 1967, RIC formed an academic affiliation with Northwestern University, establishing a residency program in physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R), and soon thereafter appointed its first Chief Scientist. In 1974, it moved into a new location at 345 E. Superior Street in Chicago, Ill., and became the first free-standing rehabilitation hospital in the nation.^{[citation needed]}

In December 2009, RIC announced that it had purchased the site of the former Chicago CBS building site (355 E. Erie Street) on which to build a new hospital, expanding its capabilities and capacity. Groundbreaking took place on July 1, 2013.^[8]

In 2016, Pat and Shirley Ryan gave a transformative gift to the new research hospital, which would be called Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. Pathways.org, the organization founded by the Ryans 30 years prior, became part of Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in 2017.^[9] On March 25, 2017, RIC officially became known as the "Shirley Ryan AbilityLab", as it opened its new research hospital.

Patient populations[]

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab serves adults and children with the severe, complex conditions – from traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury to stroke, amputation-related and cancer-related functional impairment (i.e., physical/cognitive impairment or loss of function). They have introduced a model of care through five Innovation Centers focused on areas of biomedical science:

• Brain Innovation Center
• Spinal Cord Innovation Center
• Nerve, Muscle & Bone Innovation Center
• Pediatric Innovation Center
• Cancer Rehabilitation Innovation Center

Central to applying research during care are working labs in which interdisciplinary teams develop new research and insights to help patients gain more function and achieve better outcomes. Each lab has a unique configuration based on a targeted function and the type of experimentation taking place therein:

• Think + Speak Lab: Treatment for fundamental brain functions – arousal, lucidity, awareness, thinking, communication, perception, memory and learning.
• Legs + Walking Lab: Improvement of locomotion, gait and walking via trunk and pelvis stability; positioning and control of the hips, knees and ankles; as well as stepping and propulsion.
• Arms + Hands Lab: Improvement of hand function and movement, body and upper-limb coordination, strength, reaching and hand/finger control.
• Strength + Endurance Lab: Improvement of stamina and resilience, complex motor and endurance activities, coordination, and higher-level activities of daily living (ADL) (e.g., cooking, housekeeping, exercise, sports).
• Pediatric Lab: Treatment for all of the above, with a customized approach for the developing brains, bodies and conditions unique to children (infants to teens).

Research scope and diversity[]

The organization's research budget is $19.4M . It also has five federally designated and funded centers for research and training.

Translational Lab[]

In 2012, the organization began outfitting its existing facility with an ability lab, an applied-research and therapeutic space, on one floor. The prototype space allowed researchers to work shoulder-to-shoulder with patients, doctors and therapists. Central to applying research during care are working translational ability labs in which interdisciplinary teams develop new research.

• Think + Speak Lab
• Legs + Walking Lab
• Arms + Hands Lab
• Strength + Endurance Lab
• Pediatric Lab

Research labs and centers[]

The hospital is also home to a number of other research groups.

The Center for Bionic Medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab is the largest bionic research group in the world. Discoveries and innovations include:

• The first thought-controlled bionic arm^[10] and leg^[11]
• The first manual wheelchair^[12] to offer users mobility in either a seated or standing position
• Pattern recognition-based myoelectric control of partial-hand prostheses
• Lightweight powered lower-limb prostheses
• Targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR), a surgical technique that “rewires” amputated nerves and allows intuitive control and sensation of bionic arms and legs

Biologics laboratory[]

A biomedical laboratory and equipment on the twenty-sixth floor of the hospital, comprising 10,280 square feet, enable the study of living human cells.

Max Nader Lab for Rehabilitation Technologies and Outcomes Research[]

This lab develops and execute both industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated research in prosthetics, orthotics, rehabilitation robotics, as well as other assistive and adaptive technologies. Scientists have worked with more than two dozen industrial wearable robotics collaborators, including Ottobock, Honda, Össur, Ekso Bionics, ReWalk Robotics, Parker Hannifin, Hocoma, B-Temia Inc and Samsung to create pathways and practice guidelines for the use of technologies for individuals with conditions including stroke, spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy. The lab also has research collaborations with academic and research institutions, including Walter Reed Medical Research Center, Brooke Army Medical Center Research (BAMC–Research), Northwestern University, Stanford University, Harvard University, Vanderbilt University, University of California–Irvine, University of California–Davis, LA–EPFL and ETCH in Switzerland, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and University of Twente in the Netherlands, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore and Imperial College London.^{[citation needed]}

It also conducts outcomes-based research using advanced wearable sensors^[13] in addition to traditional performance-based and patient-reported measures. This lab is one of the first to deploy sensors in an inpatient, outpatient and home rehabilitation setting for various patient populations (e.g., stroke, spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease, amputations). It is one of the first to create customized personal models of algorithms for multimodal sensors that monitor patients in the hospital and at home.

Academics and PM&R Residency Program[]

Academic home of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) Department,^[14] the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab also serves as the primary clinical partner of the University's McCormick School of Engineering.

The organization was among the first rehabilitation hospitals to offer a medical residency program in this specialty, and remains one of the largest. It is a four-year program. AbilityLab also has five fellowship programs: Pediatrics, Sports Medicine, Pain, Traumatic Brain Injury and Spinal Cord Injury.

References[]

Coordinates: 41°53′37.8″N 87°37′6.2″W / 41.893833°N 87.618389°W / 41.893833; -87.618389