About Sargent

Francis B. Sargent, MD, and Richard P. McMahon, Esq., Past Chairman of the Board

In 1952, following the vision of Francis B. Sargent, MD, the center embarked on a path that led it to become the comprehensive medical rehabilitation treatment center it is today. The goal was to develop a community-based facility that allowed people with disabilities to continue productive living and prevent transfer to long-term care facilities.

The Hasbro Building at Sargent is home to all of our pediatric services and our Textron Building houses adult and adolescent neuro-rehabilitation services.

Overview & History

For more than 90 years, the Sargent Rehabilitation Center has strived to restore dignity to its clients by helping them become independent.

The Center traces its roots back to 1917, when 25 pioneering women opened the Providence School of Lipreading. It incorporated into the Providence League for the Hard of Hearing in 1927 and later became the first rehabilitation technology program offering assistive listening devices. It remained committed to improving the lives of those with hearing disabilities well into the 1950s.

By the 1960s, the center was offering speech pathology services and developed the first outpatient clinic for adult stroke victims. In 1969, spearheaded by Marilyn Serra, the Center’s current CEO, and her colleagues in medicine and rehabilitation, Sargent opened a language and speech preschool center. By 1975 the organization had expanded its capacity to serve older children within a comprehensive Day School Program.

Throughout its history, the Center has been a pioneer in rehabilitative care. The Center developed the first aural rehabilitation program for the elderly and the first occupational health and safety industrial audiology program. It began its traumatic brain injury program in 1986 and added the adolescent brain injury unit in 1988.

In 1997, Sargent moved to its current facility in Warwick and now occupies 36,000 square feet in two buildings on its 3-acre campus on Quaker Lane.

Today, on an annual basis Sargent Rehabilitation Center serves more than 1,700 individuals and organizations from throughout all areas of Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts and Connecticut.