Improving Patient Engagement in Rehabilitation 1959

Thursday, October 30, 2025

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Location: ROOM: Conference Room 4A >>> DIRECTIONS Fourth Floor >>> From the Main Elevator Bank, proceed left. Room 4A is at the end of the corridor, after taking a right just before Room 4-D.

Corresponding Presenter(s)

Susan H. Lin, ScD OT/L FAOTA FACRM (she/her/hers)

Affiliate Faculty
Marymount University
Round Hill, VA, United States

Slides Slides

Presenter(s)

John Whyte, MD, PhD

Scientist Emeritus
Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute
Elkins Park, PA, United States
Jeanne M. Zanca, MPT, PhD, FACRM

Assistant Director, Center for Spinal Cord Injury Research
Kessler Foundation
West Orange, NJ, United States
Carla Tierney-Hendricks, PhD, CCC-SLP (she/her/hers)

Research Fellow
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
Stoneham, MA, United States
Gareth D. Jones, PhD

Clinical Lead Physiotherapist
Guy's & St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
London, England, United Kingdom

Patient engagement has been linked to better treatment gains, decreased healthcare utilization, and higher patient satisfaction. This symposium will describe a systematic approach to improve engagement and adherence by targeting patients and caregivers’ volition using the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS), an interdisciplinary framework to fully describe interventions. Specification examples addressing volition will be provided across disciplines and attendees will be asked to reflect on cases involving the patient’s capability, opportunity (to act), and motivation and design treatments to increase patient participation.

Learning Objectives:

Define patient engagement and describe its benefits in health outcomes
Explain how rehabilitation professionals can improve patient engagement and adherence by targeting volition using the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS)
Reflect on applications of volition concepts to improve clinical practice and research