Kootenai Health announced today they are working in collaboration with Alliance Data to benefit Kootenai’s Pediatric Rehabilitation Services. The $25,000 investment will build a sensory integration room to further expand the treatment and resources available for outpatient pediatric rehabilitation patients.
A sensory integration room helps to provide vital sensory input and experiences that children with sensory processing issues need to grow and learn. Kootenai’s outpatient therapy team averages 956 pediatric visits per month. It is estimated that 75 percent of these patients could benefit from having the sensory integration room available for therapy.
“For most of us, the ability to process touch, movement, sight, sound, smell, and taste comes as ‘second nature’ and without conscious effort; but one in 20 people experience inefficiency in this processing,” said Sue Donaghue, director of Rehabilitation Services at Kootenai Health. “This inefficiency then creates problems with learning, developing motor skills and managing behavior. Sensory integration therapy helps children who may be overstimulated or understimulated by their environment.”
With the generous donation from Alliance Data, this new sensory room will be built at the Rehabilitation Services building on the Kootenai Health campus and will be ready to serve patients by the spring of 2018.
Alliance Data’s card services business, a premier provider of private label, co-brand and business card credit programs, has a long history of supporting children’s health causes and programs in the communities where its associates live and work.
“A big part of our community investment is improving the lives of children,” Derrek Thomas, senior director at Alliance Data’s local operations, said. “We believe partnering with Kootenai Health and their Foundation to create this new therapy space for children in Coeur d’Alene does that, providing much-needed services that will help strengthen our community.”
Picture: Jon Ness, CEO of Kootenai Health accepts $25,000 gift to Kootenai Health from Alliance Data on behalf of its President and CEO, Ed Heffernan
