We are the combination of four hospitals: the General Hospital, the Children’s Hospital, the Women’s Hospital and the Traumatology, Rehabilitation and Burns Hospital. We are part of the Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus: a world-leading health park where healthcare plays a crucial role.
Patients are the centre and the core of our system. We are professionals committed to quality care and our organizational structure breaks down the traditional boundaries between departments and professional groups, with an exclusive model of knowledge areas.
Would you like to know what your stay at Vall d'Hebron will be like? Here you will find all the information.
The commitment of Vall d'Hebron University Hospital to innovation allows us to be at the forefront of medicine, providing first class care adapted to the changing needs of each patient.
The rehabilitation specialist is one of the people in charge of advising the family and the patient about treatment. The rest of the orthopaedic team and the team physiotherapist at the hospital will monitor the progression of this deformity. There are several different treatments for scoliosis, the use of which depends on the type, curvature, and the patient’s age.
The most negative consequence of scoliosis is that it can affect pulmonary function. To avoid this and aesthetic changes, different treatments are used.
In growing children and adolescents, a conservative treatment is used; its aim is to prevent the progression of the curve. The curvature is monitored via observation and a corrective brace is applied if the curve has reached 25 degrees. This brace reduces the risk that the curve will progress, corrects the deformity, and reduces the need for surgery.
To treat small curves that are at low risk of progression, physiotherapy is recommended.
Curves of less than 20 degrees should not be treated, and those above this angular value should meet a number of requirements:
It is important that the whole team, the patient, and the family understand and accept the treatment, that regular follow-up visits are adhered to, and that everyone works together to comply with the treatment plan.
The aim of surgery is to correct and maintain the curvature. Other objectives would be to improve the individual's appearance by balancing the torso and reducing short and long-term complications to a minimum. Surgery will be considered in the following cases:
If the patient requires surgical treatment, the team of expert traumatology surgeons at the Spinal Unit will be in charge of continuing with this process.
Childhood dystonia is progressive and debilitating, but it can be prevented with an early diagnosis and the use of specific therapies that target the genetic defect identified. Currently, several different treatments are used.
Levodopa trial
In children with isolated dystonia, a one to three-month long trial with levodopa must always be carried out. This medication can completely reverse symptoms when the dystonia is caused by a defect in dopamine synthesis. This is called dopa-responsive dystonia.
Such defective dopamine synthesis can be caused by alterations in the genes and proteins that regulate dopamine metabolism. This neurotransmitter is essential in learning, behaviour, and motor function.
Treatment with botulinum toxin
Botulinum toxin is effective at controlling focal dystonia, which affects a muscle group carrying out a specific action, such as, for example, writer’s cramp, or dystonia triggered by walking, treatment for which consists of correcting the abnormal foot or leg position when walking.
In children with generalised dystonia, botulinum toxin can also relieve pain in muscle groups that are particularly affecting the patient’s quality of life.
Treatment with various pharmaceuticals
To treat generalised dystonia in children, different drugs are administered to reduce the tremors, muscle tone, and painful spasms. These include benzodiazepines, GABA antagonists (baclofen), anticholinergics, and α-2 adrenergic receptor agonists. In some patients with paroxysmal dystonia, which is characterised by brief, repetitive involuntary movements at night, anti-epileptics are prescribed.
Intrathecal baclofen pump
When oral medications are not enough, there is a surgical option: the intrathecal baclofen pump. This internal device administers the medication baclofen through a catheter placed in the epidural space (which contains the liquid that surrounds the spinal cord). This helps control generalised dystonia, reducing pain, muscle tone, and spasms and thus improving patients’ quality of life.
This device is used to treat secondary dystonia or dystonia associated with other neurological problems (whether neurometabolic, neurodegenerative, or acquired through brain damage at birth).
Deep brain stimulation or pallidal stimulation
This consists of placing two electrodes in the pallidal nuclei of the brain via a stereotactic procedure, to improve the patient’s motor function and quality of life. Patients who are candidates for pallidal stimulation are those with primary dystonia who have no structural brain lesions in the central nervous system.
The department is made up of professionals from the Catalan Health Institute (ICS) and the Institute for Diagnostic Imaging (IDI). We use the most advanced techniques and help generalise their application to improve patient care and the quality of diagnostic and therapeutic examinations.
The Radiodiagnosis Department offers a wide range of examinations. Requests are analysed to establish their suitability, and a standard individualised study protocol for each clinical situation is assigned. Protocols are revised and updated regularly to ensure the quality and relevance of the studies. The department is organised into sections, following an “Organ and System” structure, which means we are properly integrated into the rest of the hospital, ensuring a high degree of specialisation in each area:
The mission of the Neurosurgery Department is to guarantee excellence in care, education and research, with an international outlook. We have a particular focus on the needs and preferences of patients with diseases of the nervous system that require surgical treatment.
At the Neurosurgery Department, we apply the most advanced technologies and a multidisciplinary approach in a context that allows us to train neurosurgeons with strong ethical and moral values. All this, as part of the public health system that is accessible to all citizens.
The locomotor system, also known as the musculoskeletal system, consists of a person’s bones, muscles, joints, tendons and ligaments. It is a highly structured system whose purpose is to move and support the rest of the body's structures. Rheumatology deals with disorders and diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue. It is a very wide-reaching speciality that covers almost 200 diseases.
The Vall d’Hebron University Hospital's Rheumatology Service is an adult and paediatric care service for patients with rheumatic illnesses. It serves a reference population of 450,000 inhabitants and 18 primary care centres in the AIS Nord area. We work in the hospital environment and in primary care, and outpatient activity is clearly predominant.
Guia o itenerari formatiu (GUIF) - CAS - Reumatologia
At the Spinal Cord Injury Unit, part of the Rehabilitation and Physical Medicine Department, we offer comprehensive care to patients with acute spinal cord injury and pathologies derived from chronic spinal cord injury, such as pressure wounds, acute respiratory failure, urinary infections with sepsis, autonomic dysreflexia, among others.
At the Spinal Cord Injury Unit, we seek to treat people with spinal cord injuries in order to alleviate the related disability and, therefore, improve the quality of life, health and social participation of patients. Here, patients receive comprehensive care for all the deficiencies and disabilities that can be caused by a spinal cord injury.
The Nutrition Support Unit is made up of a multidisciplinary, multiprofessional health team, composed of doctors from different specialties, nursing graduates, nutritionist dietitians, technical dieticians, nursing assistants and administrative staff. We are also a cross-cutting unit in that we support a range of other Departments. Our work in training and education is also significant.
We give nutritional and diet support to hospitalised patients across all clinical departments at the Hospital, and carry out follow-up monitoring at outpatient care for those patients who need it. We also provide outpatient care for patients referred from other healthcare areas of the Hospital and primary care centres that require specialist nutritional and dietary support. Patients requiring nutritional support are treated at the Horta Primary Care Centre.
Vall d'Hebron handles the most priority 0 and 1 Code Polytrauma cases (the most serious cases) in Catalonia, and we are the only Centre for Specialised Trauma Care, with the highest possible category for patient care with polytrauma.
The Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology Department is a wide-reaching department that serves people with pathologies, from the primary care level, in consultations carried out within the Department and local outpatient centres, to the most complex level of orthopaedic and traumatological pathologies. We work with all surgical techniques, and specialise in adapting the techniques we use. We can boast a long tradition and high level of prestige at all levels: local, regional, state and internationally.
Our Department is home to a large number of practitioners involved in admitting patients with both simple and complex traumatisms and poly-traumatisms in the Accident and Emergency Department, as well as throughout the duration of the treatment.
The main objective of the Pharmacy Department is the safe and efficient use of medication with the utmost excellence. Our Department supports care activity and is recognised as a collaborating centre of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), thanks to our role in preventing medication errors.
Our Department offers a consolidated portfolio of services, and we have a pharmaceutical team that monitors all registered prescriptions and pharmaceutical treatments.
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