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Unit offers 'home' comfort for brain-injury patients
MEDICAL advances are helping more and more people survive terrible head injuries which would have once killed them.
After a spell in hospital they may seem – at least to the outside world – perfectly all right.
But if they have had a severe brain injury they will probably never be quite the same again.
Every year around a million people go through accident and emergency with some form of head injury – of these several thousand will need long-term support.
A new unit which opens its doors next Monday at Goole Hospital, thanks to a joint venture between the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust (BIRT) and Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, will treat those in the latter category.
Many will have had a head injury in a road crash. Others may have been assaulted, or had a viral infection or a stroke.
There's already a waiting list for the service which provides both acute and post-acute care, from the phase when they still need 24-hour nursing care, to what can be months of therapy and relearning old skills.
The post-acute rooms in the centre, a former Leonard Cheshire unit, could almost pass for roadside hotel accommodation – the bathrooms are colour – coordinated and people who may live there for months will be encouraged to make it like home.
Patients will be helped on the long road to recovery by a multi-disciplinary team, including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, rehabilitation support workers, and a neuropsychologist, Dr Miles Rogish.
Dr Rogish said: "With a severe brain injury it is likely you will never be 100 per cent exactly as you were before. "What this type of rehabilitation is geared for is looking at people's strengths and looking at adaptive coping strategies based on their strengths."
Dr Rogish, who hails from Florida, explains that the the most common parts of the brain to be injured in traumatic brain injuries are the frontal lobes, which allow people to monitor their own behaviour.
People who have had brain injuries can exhibit all kinds of behaviour, which may seem strange to their families and friends, but not to themselves. "It could be anything from sexual disinhibition, not being able to pick up on subtle social cues, not being able to appreciate humour."
The idea is to get people learning to live "normally" again.
There is a kitchen with an ironing board where four people can sit down for a meal and pleasant lounge.
It can take up to nine months before people are ready to move on, back to their families or other supported facilities.
In the past people have had to travel to Leeds or York for treatment. Trust divisional manager of clinical sciences Karen Griffiths said: "This is a long awaited development for the locality, as previously patients requiring neuro-rehabilitation programmes on discharge from hospital are required to access services out of the area, which brings difficulties for patients, carers and their families."
She added: "I think (the 140,000 refurbishment) demonstrates effective use of resources. I think we have achieved a level of something that's very pleasant, very calming and will hopefully generate a feeling that there is a good standard of care."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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