ARN Foundations: How it Works
Curriculum, Learning Goals, and Course Structure
ARN Foundations lays the groundwork for many possible avenues of career advancement for rehabilitation nurses of all levels of experience. Depending on your background or the composition of your team, you may wish to sign up for the entire curriculum or a handful of the 31 total modules available. Take a closer look at the curriculum below.
ARN Foundations Curriculum
Please note that course module 1.1 (Rehabilitation Nursing Pre-Assessment) and 2.1 (Nursing Assessment) should be completed before beginning any other modules in the curriculum, and that course module 3.1 (Legal and Ethical Considerations for Care Plans) should be completed before any other modules in Track 3.
Track 1: Rehabilitation Nursing Pre-Assessment and Introduction
1.1) Rehabilitation Nursing Pre-Assessment
1.2) Fundamentals of Rehabilitation Nursing
Track 2: Rehabilitation Nursing Assessments and Interventions
2.1) Quality and Safety
2.2) Coping Skills for Adjusting/Adapting to Disability
2.3) Trauma Informed Care
2.4) Rehabilitation in the Community: Barriers and Resources
2.5) Functional Assessment
2.6) Communication Ability
2.7) Assessment of Neurological Function
2.8) Skin Integrity
2.9) Swallowing
2.10) Bladder and Bowel
2.11) Acute and Chronic Pain
2.12) Sexuality
Track 3: Caring for Patients and Family as a Team
3.1) Regulatory and Policy Considerations for Care Plans
3.2) Comprehensive Care Planning
3.3) Care Transitions and Roles of the Rehabilitation Nurse
3.4) Rehabilitation Nursing Case Management
3.5) Patient and Family Education and Coordination
Track 4: Rehabilitation for Special Populations
4.1) Rehabilitation in Children
4.2) Rehabilitation in Older Adults
4.3) Rehabilitation in Veterans
Track 5: Rehabilitation Nursing Case Studies
5.1) Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation
5.2) Stroke Rehabilitation
5.3) Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Rehabilitation Caring for Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Patients
5.4) Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Rehabilitation
5.5) Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation
5.6) Cancer Rehabilitation Caring for Cancer Patients
5.7) Neurological Rehabilitation
Curriculum Goals
Though the ARN Foundations curriculum spans a wide range of specialty areas within rehabilitation nursing, the entire program is geared toward helping nurses improve their patients’ quality of life, promote their highest level of functionality and independence, and ease their passage through the healthcare system. To that end, the goal of each module is to make sure that every student is able to…
- Systematically evaluate their patients and ask them the appropriate questions. Many facets of a patient’s health can only be understood with the help of their nurses. Nurses must be able to identify the assistance they can offer, the barriers to the patient’s recovery, and the complexities of their overall health.
- Collaborate with the entire rehabilitation team and advocate for the patient. This can include developing care plans around patient-centered goals, recommending appropriate interventions, and ensuring smooth transitions of care.
- Reconcile medications upon admission and throughout their transitions through the continuum of care. Nurses must be able to keep an accurate and up-to-date list of their patients’ medications, which can be complicated by multiple transitions of care.
- Help patients adapt to their disability, prepare for the future, and improve their quality of life. By focusing on patients’ abilities and not on what they cannot do, training patients and family members in safe care techniques, and showing what modifications might be necessary to improve self-sufficiency, a rehabilitation nurse can prevent complications and greatly improve their patients’ lives.
- Feel confident in their knowledge. When nurses are confident in their expertise, patients are confident in their nurses. Every little bit helps a patient on their journey to feel empowered, self-sufficient, and motivated.
Enroll in ARN Foundations
Ready to sign up? Great! Choose from the enrollment options below and remember that you can sign up for the entire curriculum, or for course modules either individually or in bundles of 3 or 6+. However you approach the material, make sure to enroll in Module 1.1 first to assess which parts of the curriculum would be most helpful.
