Rehabilitation Medicine

The Department of Rehabilitation Medicine is a comprehensive rehabilitation specialty integrating medical care, teaching, and research. Its core specialties are orthopedic rehabilitation, sports injury rehabilitation, spinal and spinal cord injury rehabilitation, and neurological and neurosurgical rehabilitation. It is also developing subspecialties including critical care rehabilitation, geriatric rehabilitation, oncology rehabilitation, renal rehabilitation, and cardiopulmonary rehabilitation, while offering high-end VIP rehabilitation services, thereby creating a multidisciplinary, comprehensive pattern of coordinated development across multiple fields.

In 2016, the department was jointly established with the participation of the expert team from the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine of Peking University Third Hospital. Under the leadership of Professor Zhou Mouwang, Professor Gao Qian, and other successive directors, it has developed steadily. It is now led by Xu Feng, the discipline leader and department director, and has built a rehabilitation professional team with a well-balanced structure and outstanding technical expertise.

The department is equipped with high-quality care facilities, including a spacious, bright, sunlit rehabilitation hall and dedicated VIP rehabilitation treatment rooms. It adopts a standardized integrated clinical rehabilitation diagnosis and treatment model and advanced rehabilitation technologies. A multidisciplinary team comprising rehabilitation physicians, rehabilitation therapists, and rehabilitation nursing staff develops personalized, systematic, whole-course rehabilitation treatment plans tailored to each patient, providing high-quality, patient-centered rehabilitation medical services.

Introduction to the Rehabilitation Medicine (Ophthalmology) Outpatient Clinic of Peking University International Hospital

The Rehabilitation Medicine (Ophthalmology) outpatient clinic of Peking University International Hospital provides intervention treatment for retinitis pigmentosa and visual rehabilitation after brain injury.

1. Retinitis pigmentosa: The retinitis pigmentosa service is led by Director Yang Chunhua. Its predecessor can be traced back to the “Retinitis Pigmentosa Treatment Center,” personally inaugurated in 2000 by Qian Xinzong, former Minister of Health. It has accumulated more than 40 years of research results in the basic pathophysiology of retinitis pigmentosa and experience in surgical practice. It also incorporates the essence of traditional Chinese ophthalmology and combines it with more cutting-edge treatment protocols to provide individualized treatment for patients with retinitis pigmentosa, helping patients in China and abroad delay the deterioration of visual function and preserve it.

Director Yang Chunhua bases treatment on the “visual cell starvation theory,” one of the theoretical foundations of the pathology of retinitis pigmentosa. Research has confirmed that all patients with retinitis pigmentosa have choroidal microcirculatory disorders to varying degrees. Through surgery, medication, traditional Chinese medicine, and innovative therapies, the blood supply to the choroid is improved and choroidal blood flow is increased, thereby rescuing visual cells during the stages of ischemia and nutritional deficiency and enabling them to recover a certain degree of visual function.

This project has passed expert review by the Haidian District Physicians Association and received project approval from the Haidian District Health Commission. It has not only scientific research value, but also clinical efficacy validated in 74,000 cases. The specialty has comprehensive equipment, including a visual field testing device, color fundus photography, an ophthalmoscope, ocular B-scan ultrasonography, ERG, EOG, FVEP, a computerized refractometer, a biometer, a tonometer, and a corneal topographer. Ophthalmologists, technicians, and nursing staff adhere to the patient-centered principle and serve patients’ vision and health with the humanistic concept of “care and service.”

Outpatient hours: Monday–Friday mornings

2. Visual impairment after brain injury: Visual impairment after brain injury falls within the field of neuro-ophthalmology. The underlying lesion is usually located in the intracranial visual pathways rather than in the eyeball itself. Many patients with cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, craniocerebral trauma, or who have undergone surgery for intracranial tumors are left with various abnormalities of visual function. Routine ophthalmic examinations reveal no obvious organic lesions of the eyeballs, yet the symptoms remain unresolved for long periods, seriously affecting walking safety, reading ability, and quality of daily life.

The outpatient clinic is staffed by Dong Xiaoni, Associate Chief Physician in Ophthalmology, and focuses on the standardized assessment and rehabilitation intervention of brain-derived visual disorders. Focusing on the intersection of neuro-ophthalmology, it connects the diagnostic and treatment processes of ophthalmology and neurorehabilitation. Relying on a professional neuro-ophthalmological assessment system, it conducts a systematic examination of the entire visual pathway from the retina to the visual cortex, accurately identifies the site of injury and the type of functional deficit, and aims to improve patients’ visual function, reduce the risk of falls and collisions, and help patients gradually regain abilities such as reading and activities at home. Individualized visual rehabilitation plans are developed, with intervention combined with innovative specialty therapies.

Scope of diagnosis and treatment:

1. Homonymous visual field defects and hemianopia caused by cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, brain trauma, or after craniocerebral surgery

2. Diplopia, ocular motility disorders, and abnormal saccadic and pursuit eye movements after brain injury

3. Visual neglect: inability to perceive objects in one-sided space, with a tendency to collide with objects while walking

4. Oscillopsia, persistent photophobia, visual fatigue, difficulty reading text, skipping lines or reading out of sequence, and omitting characters while reading

5. Brain-derived abnormalities of visual perception secondary to various brain diseases

Outpatient hours: Monday afternoons and Wednesday afternoons