The State government-controlled Institute for Communicative and Cognitive Neurosciences (ICCONS) at Shoranur, near here, has secured accreditation from the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), under the Quality Council of India.
It is the first neurosciences institute in the country to receive the recognition. The status will be conferred on the hospital in January last week. ICCONS, which had its beginning as a behavioural neurology clinic at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram in 1998, is the first institute of its kind in Asia for research and rehabilitation of cognitive and communicative disorders.
Its director P.A. Suresh told The Hindu that ICCONS offered a comprehensive package of early diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation therapy for neuro-cognitive developmental disorders, including autism, cerebral palsy, and metabolic disorders in children. Efforts to convert it into a deemed university on neurosciences were fast progressing, he said.
A rehabilitation centre with a fully residential special school and recreation facilities for children with permanent neurological problems was coming up near the institute, he said.
The institution, which had sub-centres in Thiruvananthapuram and Kottayam, was now concentrating on areas like autism, learning disability, developmental language disorders, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, hearing impairment, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, and aphasia.
It addressed genetic and metabolic disorders affecting speech, language, and cognitive functions, he said. The institute had a multi-disciplinary team of experts for treatment and research.
The institute was planning to increase in-patient facilities by enhancing the number of beds to 100. Its facilities included an audiology lab, speech science lab, and electro-physiology lab. It conducts graduate and postgraduate-level courses in audiology and speech language.
Focus on autism, cerebral palsy, dementia among others
Rehab centre with residential special school coming up
