Events The Rimland Center for Integrative Medicine Advocates for Children and Families provides individualized biomedical evaluations, therapies, and pediatric care in a nurturing atmosphere and teaches the model of recognizing and addressing the uniqueness of every patient and family.
Advocates for Children Pediatrics A Place of Healing Pediatric practice - accepts reimbursement Virginia Integrative Hyperbaric Center A Place of Grace Mild hyperbaric treatment in hard or soft chambers
Advocates for Families A Place of Hope Consultations for autism spectrum disorders Sinergi Services A Place of Support Holistic interventions
The Rimland Center

After Hours Care

Our telephone is answered 24 hours a day. All after hours or weekend calls will be returned by the physician or nurse on call, however if your child requires medical care between 11:00PM and 6:00AM you will be referred to the emergency room. This telephone service is available for our primary care patients only. All other patients will need to call for assistance during regular office hours.

Hope Chest Keepsakes

We like to highlight artists who have been inspired by the hope of treatment for children with autism. Another such artist is Vicki Sotack and her creations - Hope Chest Keepsakes. Vicki has a line of products specifically inspired by her son's autism and the hope of treatment called the Autism Journey.

Find out more about Hope Chest Keepsakes...

Funding Options for Biomedical Treatments - Vital Interventions Accessible

The VIA Family Assistance Program is designed to help families of children with autism to receive financial assistance to pay for biomedical treatments for their child. All money awarded to families will be sent directly to the VIA Participating Physician working with that family. Qualified applicants will be thoroughly screened. Approval will be based individually, with an emphasis on financial need of the applicant. Upon approval, each family must agree to follow the guidelines designed for the program, or will risk losing financial assistance.

Go to www.vianow.org for more details.

Vital Interventions Accessible

The non-profit Vital Interventions Accessible, Inc. is proud to announce the launch of the Beacon of Light Program. Without incurring any expense, parents of children with autism and other special needs can now set up individual websites and blogs providing updates on their child's condition and progress. These sites also offer a means for friends and family members to donate on behalf of the individual child.

The Beacon of Light Program... Go to www.vianow.org for more details and to set up your site today!

Housing options for out of town patients

Some of our out of town patients stay in Lynchburg for long periods of time. Within one block of the Rimland Center, there are furnished townhomes available with flex terms

See the "Link Road Furnished Townhomes & Apartments / Flex terms" entry on Craigslist

Furnished townhomes near the Rimland Center Furnished townhomes near the Rimland Center

Also, some of our patients stay at the Acorn Hill Lodge, which is just minutes from our offices.

Acorn Hill Lodge

Contact them to make a reservation:
Acorn Hill Lodge
2134 Old Forest Road
Lynchburg, VA 24501
Office: 434.528.0983
Website: www.acornhilllodge.com

New Fees for Email Consultations

At The RIMLAND Center, we make every effort to be available and to answer questions regarding your child during your office and/or telephone visit. We realize that additional questions and/or problems will arise and that you will want to seek counsel directly from us. We have recently started to receive an enormous amount of email requesting very child-specific counsel. This requires research and preparation on the part of Dr. Mumper and the staff in order to provide you with the appropriate answers to your questions and the best quality of care. Therefore, all email communications requiring this level of care will incur a charge. The amount of the charge will be determined by the complexity of your issues. As always, we aim to provide you and your children with the highest quality of care and we appreciate your prompt payment for these services.
EMAIL - Simple $30
EMAIL - Moderate $50
EMAIL - Complex $70

Welcome our New Nurse Practitioner - Sue Warren

A graduate of both UVA and MCV, Sue has a impressive background in pediatrics and nursing education. Sue has worked at Virginia Baptist Hospital here in Lynchburg as well as at hospitals in Richmond and San Diego. Her previous experience includes time at F. Read Hopkins and with the Health Departments in Chesterfield, Petersburg, and Lynchburg. Sue has also taught nursing at the Lynchburg College School of Nursing for over twenty years.

We hope you will join us in welcoming our new colleague into the RIMLAND Center family!

ARI Releases New Autism.tv Site

Link Your Child's Story to ARI's Latest Media Site

The Autism Research Institute is pleased to announce the release of its Autism.tv website featuring links to stories of intervention and recovery. The website is intended to demonstrate to parents, physicians, and research scientists that recovery is a reality for a significant percentage of children with autism. Autism.tv links to caregiver stories about treatment and recovery. Please send us existing story links to: Visit Autism.tv

About Recovery

At ARI, we are very careful about giving false hope to parents; but it is a far greater error to offer no hope, when recovery or near-recovery is possible. ARI strives to give realistic hope, by stating: "Autism Is Treatable, and Recovery is Possible."

Dr. Bernard Rimland, ARI's Founder, worked exhaustively to identify effective biomedical and behavioral treatments for autism. Decades ago, when most believed children would progress only as far as their innate potential permitted, Dr. Rimland spoke of recovery. And, in Dr. Rimland's lifetime, we went from "no hope" to "hope for many." With hard work and luck, we will meet our ultimate goal: "prevention and recovery for all."

In the final months of his life, Dr. Rimland often talked about the recovered children whose overjoyed parents shared their stories with ARI. His face clearly showed how proud he was to know that increasing numbers of children are improving dramatically from a disorder that, only a few decades ago, was considered hopeless.

Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative (LDDI) Consensus Statement on Environmental Factors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
CONTACTS: Elise Miller, MEd - (360) 331-7904; emiller@iceh.org
Steve G. Gilbert, PhD, DABT – (206) 527-0926; sgilbert@innd.org
CONSENSUS STATEMENT: http://www.iceh.org/LDDI.html

LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES INITIATIVE (LDDI)
PUBLISHES SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS STATEMENT ON ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

February 20, 2008, Seattle, WA. The Collaborative on Health and the Environment’s Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative published today the Scientific Consensus Statement on Environmental Agents Associated with Neurodevelopmental Disorders (available at http://www.iceh.org/LDDI.html). This statement, signed by more than 50 scientists and health professionals nationally and internationally, summarizes the latest science about environmental contaminants associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), intellectual disabilities and developmental delays.

The statement, which has a glossary and over 200 references, was drafted and reviewed by a prestigious committee of scientists and health professionals based in North America. They concluded:

Given the established knowledge, protecting children from neurotoxic environmental exposures from the earliest stages of fetal development through adolescence is clearly an essential public health measure if we are to help reduce the growing numbers of those with learning and developmental disorders and create an environment in which children can reach and maintain their full potential.”

We know enough now to move on with taking steps to protect our children. This document pulls that knowledge together to further this vital effort," said reviewer Martha Herbert, PhD, MD, an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and a pediatric neurologist with subspecialty certification in neurodevelopmental disabilities at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Other researchers on the review committee underscored the cost-savings, policy-related and ethical implications of this consensus statement. “We could cut the health costs of childhood disabilities and disease by billions of dollars every year by minimizing contaminants in the environment,” said Phil Landrigan, MD, MSc, of the Children’s Environmental Health Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “Investing in our children’s health is both cost-effective and the right thing to do.”

The overwhelming evidence shows that certain environmental exposures can contribute to life-long learning and developmental disorders,” noted Ted Schettler, MD, MPH, with the Science and Environmental Health Network. “We should eliminate children’s exposures to substances that we know can have these impacts by implementing stronger health-based policies requiring safer alternatives. Further, we must urgently examine other environmental contaminants of concern for which safety data are lacking. ”

The proportion of environmentally induced learning and developmental disabilities is a question of profound human, scientific and public policy significance,” said lead author Steven G. Gilbert, PhD, DABT, of the Institute of Neurotoxicology & Neurological Disorders, “and has implications for individuals, families, school systems, communities and the future of our society. The bottom line is it is our ethical responsibility to ensure all children have a healthy future.”

This document is designed for researchers, health professionals, health-affected groups, environmental health and justice organizations, policymakers and journalists to use as a resource for understanding and addressing concerns about links between environmental factors and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Elise Miller, M.Ed.
Executive Director
Institute for Children’s Environmental Health
1646 Dow Road, Freeland, WA 98249
Ph: 360-331-7904; Fax: 360-331-7908
New direct phone line: 360-331-7989
emiller@iceh.org
www.iceh.org; www.partnersforchildren.org; www.chenw.org

Our Italian Colleagues

The Rimland Center is delighted to have an ongoing collaboration with clinicians and families in Italy. Dr. Mumper has consulted on patients at Dr. Franco Verzella's clinic in Bologna on several occasions. She lectured in Rome for the first European Defeat Autism Now! conference in May 2007. In November, six Italian families came to the Rimland Center for three weeks to receive consultations, assessments and therapies. They were accompanied by Dr. Nicola Antonucci, who is establishing a practice in Bari, Italy to care for children with autism. Dr. Antonucci will be returning to the Rimland Center four more times in the coming year, bringing four Italian families with him each time. We thoroughly enjoy our time with our Italian colleagues whenever we are together.

See this Italian translation of an article Dr. Mumper has authored and the website of our colleagues in Italy

Hope For You To Heal

A friend of the practice, Hugo Hanson, has allowed us to make the song "Hope For You To Heal" available on our website. This song was inspired by the vision we share.

Download it here