With locations across Australia, allied health experts Better Rehab have been passionately providing care and therapies for people living with disability for eight years.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)-registered business has branches in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT, South Australia and Western Australia.

If you need physiotherapy through your NDIS plan, a driving assessment, speech pathology services for your child or a telehealth appointment for occupational therapy, Better Rehab has you covered.

Appointments can be conducted in your home or in one of Better Rehab’s clinics for any number of services.

These services include:

Occupational Therapy

What are your goals? They can be as simple as becoming more independent with showering and dressing, or as momentous as planning to live on your own.

As occupational therapists, the Better Rehab team’s goal is helping you achieve yours. They support you in finding ways to enhance your day to day life and social connectivity and help you make changes to your home so you can move around with greater ease and prescribe assistive technology or devices.

Better Rehab can offer support if you are diagnosed with conditions such as mental illness or Autism Spectrum Disorder to help you meaningfully engage with activities that matter to you the most.

Staff work with participants aged between six and 65, as well as their families and carers, providing tailored occupational therapy to support you at home, at work and out in the community!

Speech pathology

Better Rehab speech pathologists help adults and children with difficulties or impairments in speech (articulation of sounds), receptive language (understanding language), expressive language (using language), social communication, voice, fluency (stuttering), literacy and swallowing.

They tailor therapy and support services to participants and their families, friends and carers, and prescribe Augmentative and Alternative Communication where necessary.

Better Rehab’s speech pathology services may benefit you if you have been diagnosed with a neurological condition, an intellectual or developmental delay or hearing impairment.

Physiotherapy

Independence and mobility are key aspects of good health, and Better Rehab physiotherapists help adults and children get the most out of life through a range of tailored and proven treatments and therapies.

They will help you improve your mobility, balance, movement, posture, strength, coordination and management of chronic conditions.

In your home or in one of their clinics, the passionate team will thoroughly assess your abilities and work with you on a tailored physiotherapy plan to achieve your goals.

Exercise physiology

Everyone, regardless of ability or lifestyle, benefits from regular activity and healthy eating. Better Rehab exercise physiologists are trained to help you be more active by improving your fatigue levels, coordination, balance, strength, endurance and mental health.

They are there to improve your wellbeing in ways you enjoy and which are safe for you. Programs are tailored to your individual needs and focused on making you feel safe and comfortable.

Better Rehab’s exercise physiologists can provide you with stand-alone support or form part of your Better Rehab multidisciplinary support network – a team working together to help you enhance your independence and quality of life.

Positive Behaviour Support

Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) is a person-centred approach to behaviour that is focused on improving quality of life and reducing behaviours of concern.

Better Rehab’s accredited PBS practitioners will work closely with you and your family, carers and support networks to develop intervention plans and strategies that allow you to live your best life.

They can help with preparing you for school, work or other social activities, assisting in developing communication and social skills and building your mental health, flexibility and resilience.

Better Rehab believes a multidisciplinary approach is important.

Your NDIS PBS practitioner will work closely with your other service providers, such as an occupational therapist, speech pathologist, physiotherapist and exercise physiologist, for a holistic service focused on your personal needs.

Paediatrics and adolescence

Bandicoots is Better Rehab’s Early Childhood service, with a team of superstar professionals who are dedicated to helping infants and children get their best possible start in life.

The service was named after the cute marsupial that can live in a variety of habitats, as we are here to help children thrive in any environment and achieve their chosen goals. With Bandicoots, Better Rehab provides support for children six years and younger, guided by the NDIS’ Early Childhood Approach, which aims to promote children’s development and wellbeing. The program is also designed to help children up to the age of 16.

The team can help with everything that is important to you and your child in a comfortable, safe and nurturing way. Their team of early childhood professionals are clinicians from our four disciplines — occupational therapy, speech pathology, physiotherapy and PBS.

There are also key workers who will be your primary contact and who will ensure that all disciplines are working cohesively to support you.

They will partner with you as the parent, carer or guardian to set meaningful goals for your child’s development, and support you in assisting them with achieving these goals. These goals may be related to home and school tasks, relationship and friendship building, or their participation in your local community.

Driving assessments

Better Rehab’s driver trained occupational therapists specialise in assessing fitness to drive and offer driver rehabilitation services to get you behind the wheel safely and comfortably.

The program offers:

• Off-road occupational therapy driving assessments to test your vision, thinking and physical fitness to drive (about 1.5 hours).
• Practical on-road occupational therapy NDIS driving lessons customised to your usual driving style (about 1-2 hours).
• Driver rehabilitation services and re-training after an illness or injury.
• Ergonomic assessments to ensure that your vehicle is set up correctly for your needs.
• Vehicle modifications to ensure that your car meets your physical requirements.

Telehealth

For those times when it’s challenging to receive support in person, Better Rehab’s telehealth services lets you access professional allied health services with the highest standards of expert care.

Simple, user-friendly technology helps you receive therapy or assessments without the need for travel or physical contact.

Better At Home

Better Rehab’s Better At Home program is a hospital substitute treatment program for eligible health fund members who have undergone or are about to undergo elective hip and knee replacement surgery in a private hospital.

As a premier National Allied Health Provider with a reputation that exceeds most in providing quality community rehabilitation, Better Rehab is proud to offer this program designed as an alternative to inpatient rehabilitation or day only rehabilitation/outpatient services, allowing you to fully focus on your rehabilitation and recovery in the comfort of your own home.

This is a no-gap physiotherapy service to support you through your surgical rehabilitation and recovery.

The Better At Home program is developed from the latest research findings and expert advice from surgeons, leading acute surgical facilities and physiotherapists. You will be provided with the appropriate advice, resources and treatment that will guide you every step of the way in your journey to recovery.

NSW Schools Specialist Scheme

Better Rehab works with many children with disabilities through the NDIS, but we also provide support through the NSW Department of Education’s Specialist Allied Health Service Provider Scheme.

The team collaborates with school principals and Learning and Support Teams to help students with disabilities participate in educational activities and access the curriculum.

Better Rehab’s school services are focused on the way a student interacts with their lessons, schoolwork and assessments in the context of additional learning needs.

The Better Rehab story started in 2014 with a simple idea: better services in occupational therapy for people living with a disability.

Rachel Brimblecombe was working as a university lecturer when she grew disappointed with the disability services available to the community.

She envisioned bringing together like-minded allied health professionals dedicated to providing the highest level of care – People who genuinely loved what they did and wanted to achieve outstanding participant results.

Rachel was also keen to do away with bureaucracy and outdated funding models that encouraged the idea of seeing people with disability quickly rather than effectively.

With these goals in mind, Rachel established the company and captured her vision in its name: Better Rehab.

This proved to be exactly what the community needed, as the response to Better Rehab’s services over the years has been exceptional.

Better Rehab has now grown from a single room to several locations across Australia.

But, no matter how big they have grown, Better Rehab has never deviated from its path of continuing to be guided by the values that have driven the team from the very beginning.

The team at Better Rehab vows to always provide people-centred and community-based services tailored to the needs of the people in their care and promises to continue to champion their choices and provide them with the attention and care that they deserve.

To find out more about this amazing multi-disciplinary business, be sure to check out their website and find your nearest clinic.