Dr. Patel: What does a rehab physician do? I take care of function. So it doesn’t matter how the person has lost their function, whether it be because of a sports injury, or they had a heart attack, or they had a stroke, or a gunshot wound to the spinal cord and now they’re paralyzed - all those patients have lost function and I try and restore their function the best I can using medicine, therapy, and intervention.
Narrator: Physiatrist Dr. Atul Patel at Kansas City Bone and Joint Clinic specialized in function restoration. The only non-surgical specialist with the private practice physician group, Dr. Patel uses cutting edge technology to assess patients’ function.
Dr. Patel: So when I’m assessing their function I use different equipment. For example, I assess their nerves and muscles using electrodiagonistic medicine. I assess their muscle and joint function using ultrasound. It’s important that sometimes when we have patients with a problem like carpal tunnel syndrome, oftentimes one of the treatments for that is just to go ahead and do a steroid injection into the wrist and it’s a very low-risk procedure and people do fine. Now with newer technology, with ultrasound, I can actually see the median nerve and inject right next to the nerve and make sure I don’t hit the needle on the nerve and at the same time I don’t nick a blood vessel or something like that.
Narrator: A former educator, Dr. Patel continues to publish articles while practicing at Kansas City Bone and Joint Clinic.
Dr. Patel: When I look at the wrist, you can see these circular structures. Some of those are blood vessels.
Narrator: Restoring function and helping people get back to doing everything they love.
Dr. Patel: People may have mild deficits in their function or they might be hurting and not able to do it properly - they can maybe still get it done. Trying to improve their function and then actually making a difference in that is extremely gratifying.
Narrator: For more information on rehab medicine or to schedule an appointment with physiatrist Dr. Atul Patel, call 913-381-5225 or visit KCBJ.com.