Brain injury awareness

We have recently just had our second set of brain injury awareness sessions, once again hosted by our lovely volunteers Melody Cowell and Sidra Baroudi. There were 4 main topics for the sessions:

1. Memory
2. executive function
3. the complexity of the brain
4. identity

On average 5-8 people attended the sessions and were keen to develop their understanding of the brain, as well as share their own experiences and offer advice on how they manage their condition on a day to day basis. One thing the clients particularly liked was the analogy of the chief executive vs the office where the back of the brain was responsible for retaining resources, and the front of the brain was responsible for thinking about how to use those resources. We also spoke about strategies one could use to help overcome cognitive impacts, these included:

1. Writing notes or keeping a diary to keep track
2. regularly scheduling breaks to prevent loss of interest and concentration
3. simply laid out instructions/ to do lists written at the start of the day and review at the end of the day.
4. Being wary of overloading with too much information, learning to request for pieces of information to be broken down into smaller chunks.

We also discussed how an ABI can affect a person's identity and how they see themselves. We stressed that even though an ABI is such a traumatic event for any person to experience, it can be viewed as a way for something to make a fresh start with a different outlook on life. An ABI will undoubtably mean that some tasks may become more difficult to accomplish, and others may not be possible without the assistance of someone else. But its important that we focus on the things that the person can do, and build an action plan to ensure they return to have a life as healthy as possible, whilst remembering that life doesn't always have to go back to the way that it was before, and that change isn't always a negative thing.

We would also like to thank both of our volunteers for taking the time to deliver these sessions, especially Sidra who will sadly leaving us at the end of December. We would like to say how much we appreciate her contribution to Attend, and wish her all the best for the future. We also look forward to more presentations from Melody in the new year.