Abstract
Objective: The North Star Project is an acute care rehabilitation approach for patients with moderate and severe traumatic brain injuries. This patient-centered project uses the concepts of Reality Orientation Therapy to develop a unique approach that focuses "environment," "consistency" and "standardization" to promote a total team effort. Patients, treatment staff and members of the patient's family collaborate in a unified bedside protocol that stimulates orientation, encourages patients' appropriate interactions and aims to decrease the length of post-traumatic amnesia. Development of materials, protocols, training and outcome measurement initiatives are described.
THE NORTH STAR Project is an initiative taken by members of the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Program, a multidisciplinary team of front-line rehabilitation specialists who deliver professional care to an average of 350 patients with TBI each year. The TBI Program is funded primarily by the Quebec Automobile Insurance Association, a provincial-level government agency whose purview includes the indemnity and rehabilitation of victims of motor vehicle accidents. The clinical and administrative staff members of the TBI Program are employees of the McGill University Health Centre, an expansive health care organization with five different hospital sites in the downtown Montreal area. The TBI Program is an integral part of the trauma department at the McGill University Health Centre's Montreal General Hospital site, a tertiary care (specialized treatment and teaching programs) level one trauma center. Health care is delivered in French and English to patients 18 years or older from a wide range of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.