Patient Guide
Your treatment journey, step by step
Practical guides for international patients and their families — planning treatment, travelling, the stay itself, recovery and what follows when you are home.
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- Planning your treatmentHow a rehabilitation plan is written before you travelSix steps from your first message to your return home, and what the written plan commits us to before anyone books a flight.
- Planning your treatmentAm I a candidate for intensive rehabilitation?Three conditions decide whether an intensive programme is appropriate — and endurance is a starting level, not a barrier.
- Planning your treatmentThe online consultation: what it can and cannot settleA video conversation with a rehabilitation physician before you travel — what it establishes, and the line it does not cross.
- Choosing a centreCompare the programme, not the buildingPhotographs of a lobby tell you nothing about recovery. Four things do, and all four can be asked for in writing.
- Choosing a centreWhat accreditation does and does not tell youInternational accreditation is meaningful and worth checking. It certifies process, not outcome — and the difference matters.
- Choosing a centreThe questions that separate answers from brochuresFive questions any provider should answer in writing, and the answers that should worry you.
- Planning your treatmentHow a rehabilitation plan is written before you travelSix steps from your first message to your return home, and what the written plan commits us to before anyone books a flight.
- Planning your treatmentAm I a candidate for intensive rehabilitation?Three conditions decide whether an intensive programme is appropriate — and endurance is a starting level, not a barrier.
- Planning your treatmentThe online consultation: what it can and cannot settleA video conversation with a rehabilitation physician before you travel — what it establishes, and the line it does not cross.
- Choosing a centreCompare the programme, not the buildingPhotographs of a lobby tell you nothing about recovery. Four things do, and all four can be asked for in writing.
- Choosing a centreWhat accreditation does and does not tell youInternational accreditation is meaningful and worth checking. It certifies process, not outcome — and the difference matters.
- Choosing a centreThe questions that separate answers from brochuresFive questions any provider should answer in writing, and the answers that should worry you.
- Travel and logisticsVisas and entry requirements: what we can and cannot doRequirements depend on your nationality. We issue the documentation applications usually lack — we do not submit them and cannot influence the outcome.
- Travel and logisticsThe invitation letter: what it contains and what it provesPatient details, diagnosis, dates, the treating facility and its authorisation number — issued in English once the plan is confirmed.
- Travel and logisticsArrival and airport transfer: the first hoursWho meets you, which airport your plan names and why, and what actually happens on the first day.
- Before your programmeWhich medical records to send, and what to do without themA discharge summary and imaging of the affected area are the minimum. Send what you have — the plan is still written, the estimate is just wider.
- Before your programmeWhat to bring, including what people forgetMedication in original packaging, the imaging, familiar footwear and the walking aid already in use — and a separate list for the companion.
- Before your programmeTravelling by stretcher or with a medical escortFor patients who cannot travel seated: airline approval, medical clearance and an escort — and at least two weeks of notice.
- During your stayWhat a day of intensive rehabilitation actually looks likeThe shape of an inpatient day, what counts as therapy, and why fatigue is managed rather than ignored.
- During your stayWhere patients and companions stayInpatient rooms, clinical-hotel accommodation and nearby hotels — and why the choice is a clinical decision as much as a preference.
- During your stayInterpreters: where language help works and where it does notWhich conversations interpreting covers well, and why speech and language therapy cannot be delivered through an interpreter.
- Recovery and aftercareHow progress is measured during a programmeNamed instruments at admission and discharge, scored the same way both times — so the result can be checked by someone who was not there.
- Recovery and aftercareFatigue, pacing and the boom-and-bust cycleWhy a good day followed by several bad ones is a pattern rather than bad luck, and how pacing is built into the programme.
- Recovery and aftercareWhen a second block of rehabilitation makes senseRepeat programmes work when there is a defined goal left to reach — and we will say when there is not.
- Returning home and follow-upWhat you should leave with at dischargeThe documents that let a clinician at home continue from a known point rather than starting again.
- Returning home and follow-upThe early weeks at home are the fragile onesGains are held or lost in the weeks after discharge, and the risks are practical rather than clinical.
- Returning home and follow-upRemote follow-up: what it can and cannot replaceScheduled video reviews that adjust the home programme — useful for progression and technique, not a substitute for hands-on therapy.
- Companion and family supportWhy a companion is required rather than suggestedTherapy occupies a few hours of the day. Whoever is there carries the rest — and delivers the programme for the eleven months the patient is not with us.
- Companion and family supportWhat a companion is actually taughtHandling, the home programme under supervision, equipment and skin checks — and when not to help.
- Companion and family supportLooking after yourself is part of the jobThe companion is often the person under the most strain and the one nobody asks about. Exhaustion reaches the patient.
- Accessibility and special needsAccessibility: what to confirm for your own situationRehabilitation centres are built around limited mobility — but "accessible" is a general word and your requirement is specific.
- Accessibility and special needsFlying with limited mobility or a wheelchairWhat to tell the airline, when to tell them, and the details that decide whether the journey is manageable.
- Accessibility and special needsReligious and cultural requirements during a stayPrayer, gender preference in care, fasting and diet — what to tell us before arrival so the timetable is built around it.
- Measurement and outcomesWhich measurement instruments are used, and why thoseValidated scales for independence, balance, walking, tone and cognition — chosen by diagnosis rather than applied uniformly.
- Measurement and outcomesHow to read the measurements in a discharge documentTwo scores, the same instrument, the same rules — and what a difference between them does and does not prove.
- Measurement and outcomesWhat outcome numbers cannot tell youPublished success rates are usually uncheckable. Here is what makes a number meaningful and what makes it decoration.
- Quality, safety and accreditationHealth tourism authorisation: the licence you can checkIn Türkiye, treating international patients requires a facility-level authorisation. It is verifiable, and it is worth verifying.
- Quality, safety and accreditationMedication safety when you are treated abroadBring the list, bring the packaging, and expect a reconciliation on admission — brand names differ between countries even when the drug does not.
- Quality, safety and accreditationWhat happens if the patient becomes unwell during the programmeAsk before you travel: which hospital, at whose cost, and what happens to the unused days.
- Medical records and dataHow your medical records are handledEncrypted transfer, encrypted temporary storage, transfer to the clinical record, then automatic deletion — and never on the website’s servers.
- Medical records and dataWhy the images matter more than the reportA radiology report answers the question it was asked. Rehabilitation often asks a different one — so send the study, not the summary.
- Medical records and dataYour rights over your own dataAccess, correction, deletion and withdrawal of consent — how to exercise them and what to expect.
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