Nick Reiser, director of Rehabilitation at Concordia, demonstrates the patient benefits of aquatic therapy to the Butler Chamber Leadership Class when they toured the new Lund Care Center expansion in Cabot last month.

In the past several months, Concordia Lutheran Ministries has embodied the word progress, both inside its facilities and beyond.

With the opening of the Lund Care Center in November 2006, Concordia Outpatient Therapy nearly doubled in size, serving a broader range of patients than ever before. The center, which serves the 60 to 70 patients per week, includes more than 14 pieces of equipment and a new aquatic therapy pool.

Nick Reiser, director of rehabilitation services, hopes to see a 50 percent increase in outpatient therapy visits within a year.

"Our goal is to serve everyone from high school athletes to seniors needing knee replacements and everyone in between," Reiser said. "Concordia has a long history of helping our residents and we can't wait for the community to catch on to the excellent services we have here."

With the expanded outpatient therapy center, a state-of-the-art aquatic therapy pool was also installed. The pool, a HydroWorx 1500, is best known for its use by professional sports teams. The pool Concordia has is the newer model of what the Pittsburgh Steelers use.

The trademark of this pool is its adjustable floor and variable water depth, enabling users to easily enter and exit the pool. Patients are able to walk or be wheeled onto the floor of the pool, which then descends to depths of 6 feet, 6 inches in under 30 seconds.

Also new to the Concordia at Cabot campus is a medical services suite in the Lund expansion. The suite has specialty doctors' offices and diagnostic and lab services.

With this addition, Concordia residents and the surrounding community have easy access to specialty physicians in cardiology, ophthalmology, colo-rectal and general surgery, orthopedics, and podiatry.

The physicians are members of the medical staffs at Alle-Kiski Medical Center and Butler Memorial Hospital. The diagnostic services include X-ray and mammography.

Another aspect of Concordia Lutheran Ministries that recently received a facelift was its Web site, www.Concordialm.org.

"This new Web site is part of our growth effort," said, Keith Frndak, Concordia president and CEO. "We're excited to have a site that reflects the vision of Concordia and the spirit I believe we convey."

It offers a number of new features, such as a media page, an events page, a directions page, and individual pages for Concordia's recent additions — Rebecca Residence in Allison Park, The Orchard in Butler, Ridgewood Place in Plum Borough, and Good Samaritan Hospice in Wexford.

Concordia's new brand position "We Put Our Faith In Caring" acts as a brief explanation of the superior facilities Concordia maintains and the excellent staff that makes the level of care so high.

Concordia's "faith" is not just a proclamation of the organization's belief in God, but a real, practical faith that acknowledges that some day everyone may need the services Concordia offers.