Supporting individuals who have experienced a brain injury to regain independence

In brain injury rehabilitation, occupational therapy focuses on helping individuals who have suffered life changing injuries to regain independence, improve function, and reintegrate into their daily activities and pre-injury roles.

A brain injury can result in a wide range of physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioural challenges, and the Occupational Therapist plays a vital role in addressing these issues to help individuals achieve their goals and improve their quality of life.

Here at Neuro OT, we offer specialist occupational therapy assessment and treatment programmes for clients with a brain injury, aged 16 or over.

What to expect

Assessment

A comprehensive assessment will be completed by an Occupational Therapist to assess the individual’s strengths and limitations in the domains of self-care, productivity, and leisure. They will complete a range of baseline assessments to consider the impact of cognitive, physical, emotional, and behavioural impairments on the individual’s occupational performance to understand where the barriers to independence lie.

Goal setting

We keep the individual motivated by working with them to set achievable goals aimed at addressing the barriers to independence in a variety of self-care, household, community, leisure, education, and work domains.

The occupational therapy goals relate to the wider interdisciplinary team goals, ensuring the team work collaboratively to help the individual achieve their long-term goals. Goals are reviewed and revised regularly to monitor gains and to ensure the rehabilitation programme is progressive.

The Occupational Therapist will use a range of outcome measures to evaluate the progress the individual makes and the effectiveness of the occupational therapy programme.

Treatment Planning and Intervention

Occupational therapy interventions are personalised to the individual’s unique set of treatment needs and goals. Therapy is delivered in an environment which is important to them and relevant to their goals such as their own home, an independent living trial property, the community, their workplace, an education setting, or a rehabilitation unit.

Throughout intervention, the Occupational Therapist may utilise various approaches to address impairments including cognitive or physical exercises, repetition and rehearsal of skills, compensatory strategies, equipment provision, and environmental modifications.

Treatment may be provided to address skills related to:

Self-care – getting washed, dressed, self-medicating, achieving good sleep outcomes and managing fatigue

Household management – cooking, domestic chores, managing household bills, general financial management and pet care

Community management – road safety, travel planning, driving, shopping, budgeting and community reintegration

Social and leisure – meeting with family and friends, and pursuing hobbies and interests

Productivity – vocational rehabilitation may be provided as a targeted intervention or as part of a wider occupational therapy programme to address skills relating to a vocational role whether this is paid employment, voluntary work or engagement in a productive activity. The Occupational Therapist may provide vocational assessment, training, and support to help the individual achieve their vocational goals and maintain or establish meaningful roles.

Evaluation and Discharge

When the individual has achieved their goals, they may be discharged from the occupational therapy service. Intervention won’t stop immediately; it will be slowly reduced over time to allow the team to assess how the individual manages to maintain gains and continue to consolidate learning as therapy reduces overtime.

Rehabilitation Assistant Intervention

Our Rehabilitation Assistants work with both children and adults under the guidance of the Occupational Therapist, and other therapists working with the individual, to reinforce the strategies and routines of their therapy programme. This involves regular goal focussed sessional work with the individual.

They provide opportunities for consolidation of learning through repetition and rehearsal of skills until these become habitual and integrated into routines. This intervention is key to moving the client’s therapy programme forward in a timely and cost-efficient manner and can be instrumental in achieving good outcomes, quickly.

Our Rehabilitation Assistants have significant experience of working with individuals following a brain injury in various roles including Support Worker, Team Leader, and Personal Trainer, before training to become Rehabilitation Assistants.

Our team of Rehabilitation Assistants have experience of introducing the notion of support to individuals in the very early stages of their rehabilitation programmes. They demonstrate what can be achieved with support, delivered with enablement and self-management of impairments in mind.

We know how skilled our Rehabilitation Assistants are and we would like their experience to benefit as many individuals as possible. That is why we are happy for our Rehabilitation Assistants to work in teams external to Neuro OT, so long as there is a therapist within the team who can support and direct them in their interventions.

If you have a question or would like to speak to a member of our team