CarolinaEast Foundation celebrates 30 years with reopening of rehab ADL Apartment

NEW BERN, N.C. (WITN) — The CarolinaEast Foundation marked 30 years of service Wednesday with the grand reopening of the Activities of Daily Living Apartment at CarolinaEast Rehabilitation Hospital.

They held a ribbon-cutting Wednesday morning at the hospital. A grant secured by the CarolinaEast Foundation and support from G-CF New Bern Mill funded the renovation.

The apartment is a realistic training space inside the rehab hospital where patients practice daily tasks to transition back to independent living. It is already fully functioning.

“One woman already shared a story with me that she had a neighbor just last week, happened to be here in the rehab facility and commented how nice it was and was learning how to remake a bed and everything,” said Elena Sanders, mill manager at the GCF New Bern Fluff Pulp Mill. “So just to already hear a story of it being used and it’s just really heartwarming.”

Sanders says the project hit home for her after her own mother needed rehab care.

“My mother, she broke her hip four years ago and had to go to a rehab facility,” Sanders said. “And in talking to her and visiting that place, I didn’t realize the common task that people have to be retrained how to do.”

Therapists say that real-world practice makes therapy more effective.

“Sitting and putting some pegs in a pegboard isn’t really meaningful, but getting in the kitchen and putting some dishes away out of the dishwasher, that’s something that they’re going to do on an everyday basis,” said Amy Burdulis, therapy manager at CarolinaEast Rehab Hospital. “So we use a lot of those activities to hide the therapy so they don’t realize they’re working.”

The renovated space is now open for patients at the CarolinaEast Rehabilitation Hospital in New Bern.