Overview of Day 2: Burn Rehabilitation

It is quite difficult to separate acute care from burn rehabilitation, because so many of the long-term burn effects are impacted by events that occur in the early post-injury period. As we began to set the agenda for the rehabilitation day of the State of the Science Conference, we found that identifying topics worthy of discussion was quite easy, but narrowing the list to seven topics was quite challenging. Adequate discussion of each topic could easily fill an entire a day—let alone a single hour. We selected a renowned group of moderators and panelists to lead discussion of the following topics: psychological health, the burn scar, community integration, burn reconstruction, the hand, and restoration of function. Although these topics seem distinct in many ways, there is still an enormous amount of overlap between them. For example, scar and hand function can significantly impact psychological health and, ultimately, impact potential for successful community integration.