Official aims and organisation

Background

The work of the Fondazione Santa Lucia dates back to 1960 when, under another name, the facility was devoted to the care of disabled veterans of World War Two. In those days the concept of rehabilitation as understood nowadays was almost unknown.

An innovative process was thus started that, enhanced by the growth of ideas, initiatives and new methods, gave rise to the first programmes of functional rehabilitation, social and employment reinstatement of the disabled and sports therapy.
The cultural process thus drew closer to the needs of the disabled User by establishing increasingly suitable and excellent rehabilitation services and treatments.

During the Eighties, the Management of the present-day Foundation promoted intense research work and allocated part of its budget to funding projects for the study of neurological damage. Italian and foreign scientists, all from universities, participated in this high-level work. The subjects and results of the research have been published in scientific journals distributed both in Italy and internationally.

On 7 August 1992, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the University and Scientific and Technological Research, granted the Fondazione Santa Lucia the status of Scientific Institute for Hospitalisation and Treatment of National Importance and High-level Specialisation in Neuromotor Rehabilitation, in recognition of its constant commitment to clinical, research and teaching activities.

The Foundation's Hospital

A modern, high-technology six-storey building, covering a total area of over 30,000 sq.m, houses the new Fondazione Santa Lucia hospital. The structure, immersed in the nature oasis between Via Appia and Via Ardeatina, meets the most modern organisational, technological and quality standards. Disabled persons, Users and the voluntary associations operating in the Institute assisted in the creation of all the facilities by checking and testing the proposed designs. Every floor of the building houses 53 very high-technology beds, in rooms of 46 sq.m with bathroom, and a gym of about 400 sq.m for physiokinesitherapy. The hospital, specialised exclusively in functional recovery and re-education, has 320 beds accredited by the National Health Service of which:

• 296 beds for ordinary hospitalisation,
• 24 day-hospital beds,

in addition to 18 beds for private patients.

Other facilities available are the:

• respiratory rehabilitation service,
• phoniatrics service,
• logopaedics service,
• hydrokinesitherapy service,
• neuropsychological diagnosis and treatment service,
• neurophysiopathology service,
• occupational therapy workshop,
• general outpatients' department,
• analysis laboratory,
• imaging diagnosis service.

Scientific Research

As a Scientific Institute for Hospitalisation and Treatment, the Santa Lucia Foundation carries out intensive research work in the fields of neuromotor rehabilitation and, more generally, of neuroscience.

Experimental work is closely linked with care and that is why, while staying at the Foundation, a User may be contacted and invited to participate in a scientific project, subject to informed consent.

Research programmes are an essential activity in the field of care because they make it possible to discover new rehabilitation cures and treatments in the interests of the User and, more generally speaking, of the community.

An Ethics Committee operates in the Foundation.
The Committee meets periodically and applies internationally recognised evaluation criteria (approved by the "Helsinki Declaration" 1996 ed. - and confirmed during the "Convention for the Defence of the Rights of Man and the Dignity of the Human Being in relation to the application of Biology in Medicine", held in Strasburg in 1996) and it is the guarantor of the protection of the User during the experimentation.

Before being included in a "research protocol" the User is adequately informed about the project and the tests to be conducted in it through the completion and signature of the special "informed consent" form.

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Pubblicato su: 2005-11-04 (20847 letture)