Severe
Brain Injury and the Occupational Therapist
This web site describes the work done by an Occupational
Therapist and a young man with severe brain injury.
An account is given of their progress through four simple tasks
over a period of a few months, annotated by the later reflections
of the practitioner.
The diagnosis of this man was severe brain injury, but his dilemma
was that he did not know what to do with his life. This dilemma
is taken as the starting point for the thesis, using a framework
centred on occupation.
Rehabilitation is always going to be relevant to the person with
brain injury, but it is not possible to frame the whole of life
in the context of rehabilitation. There comes a time when it is
more appropriate to get on with life, taking the brain injury
into account. The brain injury does not go away, which means that
support is still necessary, this thesis attempts to describe the
different kind of practice which is necessary in this case.
The writer is an occupational therapist who was employed by,
and directly responsible to, the family of the young man who had
the head injury. This was a unique situation which arose from
a political and funding context in the mid nineties. The context
has changed, but the work described here is still being done by
carers and families of people with brain injury.
Note: all identifying features have been changed in this web
site.
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