Webinars
Welcome to the SAFE Webinar Series Resource Centre, to view the resources for each webinar in the series, please just click on the buttons to learn more.
Getting back to work after stroke
Going back to work after a stroke is an important goal for many- but may seem impossible. Yet, despite impairments, a return to professional work is possible. This session provides practical help on doing this.
"Congratulations to you all👏🏻👏🏻 Very interesting presentations"
"Very good points made throughout the morning, thank you to all the speakers. So important to have the conversation early with patients regarding return to work."
Communication in everyday life
Clearly communicating thoughts, ideas and expectations is a challenge in the lives of stroke survivors. In this webinar, the panel will address ways to overcome communication barriers for those with and without aphasia.
"Thank you for the excellent presentations including stroke survivors stories/experiences. I will definitely be aiming to embed some of these thoughts into my practice to empower my patients to be equipped for self management of their condition in order to give them quality of life as stroke survivors."
Communication in everyday life
Clearly communicating thoughts, ideas and expectations is a challenge in the lives of stroke survivors. In this webinar, the panel will address ways to overcome communication barriers for those with and without aphasia.
Jean-Marie Annoni
Jean-Marie Annoni studied medicine in Geneva and specialised in neurology, behavioural neurology and neurosciences at hospitals in Zurich, Geneva, in the cantons of Valais and St. Gallen, London and Montreal.
Jean-Marie worked as a neurologist at the Geneva and Lausanne hospitals and is Professor of Neurology at the University of Friborg and a neurologist at the Friborg hospital, looking after neurological problems, and more specifically, memory and language problems, degenerative diseases and headaches.
For 20 years, his research has focused on the consequences of stroke, relearning after stroke and the cerebral organisation of language, particularly in bilingualism.
Alexia Kountouri
Alexia Kountouri had a stroke in May 2015 whilst she was studying for a PhD in the UK. Her right side was paralysed and she had to give up her studies.
She has had to learn how to adapt, cope and solve problems caused by her disability. She is now a social worker in Nicosia Municipality Multifunction Foundation, enabling vulnerable and marginalised people in Nicosia to become active and integrated into society. Alexia is also an Ambassador for stroke in Cyprus.
Jürg Schwyter
Jürg R Schwyter was Head of the English Department and Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Lausanne when he suffered a severe brain stroke. Numerous therapies later, he successfully re-integrated into professional life and taught at the University before retiring in 2020 to the post of Research Fellow.
As a linguist, his research interests now focus on aspects of language and the brain. He has a keen interest in aphasia, and the interrelationship of multilingualism and strokes. As a stroke survivor and aphasiac, he wants to inform the stroke community and the wider public about the impact of stroke on language, communication and multilingualism.
Mina Michalatou
Mina Michalatou is a member of the stroke support organisation, Hellenic Alliance for Stroke. She is a passionate archaeologist and in recent years she has been working as a teacher of Greek Language and/or Greek as a Second/Foreign language to children.
After her stroke, Mina’s goal became to positively impact the lives of young people by raising awareness about stroke. She is involved in the FAST HEROES 112 campaign of the Department of Educational and Social Policy of the University of Macedonia and member of the European Network Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation.
Fatigue after stroke: what can we do?
Fatigue after stroke is common and debilitating. Yet despite much research on the topic, there are many unanswered questions about fatigue and how best to manage it. Stroke survivors often report that clinicians do not talk to them about fatigue- and some only learn much later that it is a symptom of stroke. This session will provide an overview of the topic and the important issues for both clinicians and stroke survivors.
"Thank you Ruth, a wonderful insight into life with fatigue. Well done on your amazing improvements and skiing!"
"Your presentation left us with the feeling of hope. Very positive - thankyou"
Life After Stroke: Priorities, Challenges and Ways Forward
The session highlights key issues affecting stroke survivors in the longer term and shares examples of good practice and what ‘good’ long term support looks like in a post-pandemic context.
"..interesting insights into stroke care and the additional challenges caused by Covid. A particular highlight was the incredibly inspirational talk from Alexia about her lived experience."
"Words of wisdom shared by stroke survivors...: ‘never give up’, ‘I had to reinvent myself’, ‘I had to push the restart button"
"Really interesting.....A great opportunity to hear how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected services around Europe and what changes have been implemented to provide necessary support and rehab after stroke"
"An absolute inspiration, just amazing. Thank you so much Alexia for sharing your experiences"
Life After Stroke: Priorities, Challenges and Ways Forward
The first webinar hears updates from Bo Norrving (Sweden), Juliet Bouverie (UK), Liam Healy (Ireland) and Caterina Pistarini (Italy) on people’s experiences of the impact of stroke before and during the pandemic, and how healthcare and support services have adapted to meet the challenges of post-pandemic stroke care.
Bo Norving
Juliet Bouverie
Liam Healy
Caterina Pistarini
Bo Norving - is Professor in Neurology at Lund University, Sweden. He has published over 500 papers on stroke and several books. He was corresponding author of the Swedish Aspirin Low-Dose Trial (SALT) published in The Lancet 1991 as the first trial to demonstrate the benefit of low dose aspirin therapy for the prevention of stroke.
Bo is a founder of the Swedish Stroke Register (Riksstroke), the world’s first national stroke registry. Since 2014 he chairs the Riksstroke, and is actively engaged in many international register collaborations. He is the first Editor-in-Chief for the European Stroke Journal.
His presentation on challenges in supporting Life after stroke: experiences from Sweden can be viewed at 12:52 in the video.
Bo Norving Supporting Slides:
Bo Norving Q&A:
The (small) secretariat of the Swedish Stroke Register is governmentally supported and part of the country’s social medicine principle. For the registration at the hospitals, each unit covers its own cost as part of the healthcare system.
The post-stroke checklist is only a tool and what counts is which actions the post-stroke checklist leads to in the next step. Just ticking off the items in the post-stroke checklist is not enough
This has not been analysed in detail so far, but at this stage, we have not found any differences
In Sweden we recommend three to six months for the follow up, recognising that a structured systematic follow up is not yet in place and that it is difficult to be very strict on the exact timing. Still receiving therapy eg speech therapy or physiotherapy would not hinder a systematic follow-up visit in my view, since there are so many domains to follow up.
Juliet Bouverie - is the Chief Executive of the Stroke Association, the UK’s leading stroke charity promoting life after stroke. The organisation’s activities extend from funding stroke research, to providing services to stroke survivors and their families, influencing and campaigning for change, and educating and working to prevent strokes. There are 1.2 million stroke survivors in the UK, yet stroke still remains the fourth single largest cause of death in the UK and second in the world.
Juliet co-chairs the Stroke Delivery Programme Board with NHS England and is a member of the NHS Assembly.
Her talk on how COVID-19 has impacted people affected by stroke in the UK and what that means for stroke policy and support services can be viewed at 31:19 in the video.
Juliet Bouverie Supporting Slides:
Juliet Bouverie Q&A:
Yes. The Stroke Association’s Stroke Recoveries at Risk report stroke.org.uk/sites/default/files/campaigning/jn_2021-121.1_-_covid_report_final.pdf, published September 2020, shows that 7 in 10 stroke survivors report feeling more anxious or depressed recently, 45% of all stroke survivors now feel less able to cope with the impacts of their stroke, and over a third (37%) report feeling abandoned. We know that access to rehabilitation and support - already very patchy across the UK - was hampered by the pandemic. For example, our SRAR report shows that 57% of stroke survivors had appointments related to their stroke cancelled or postponed, and 55% had therapy cancelled or postponed. 39% of stroke survivors who had their stroke last year said they had not received enough rehabilitation therapies. We are committed to understanding the longer-term impact of the pandemic on stroke survivors as Covid-19 cases fall, and the backlog of rehabilitation and support needs there may be as a result. The Stroke Association has also committed to maintaining its two new Covid services into the long term: Stroke Connect - a phone support and signposting service for those newly discharged from hospital stroke.org.uk/professionals/stroke-association-connect, and Here for You - a volunteer phone support service to help reduce isolation and feelings of abandonment - stroke.org.uk/finding-support/here-for-you
I agree that there is a skill in handling conversations and therapy provision remotely. You need both the service user to be confident with the digital medium so that the technology is not creating a barrier, and then you need a skilled therapist who is able to adapt their approach to the digital medium as well. So, it will be a case going forward of ensuring that both are enabled/upskilled - the service user to access the technology and the therapist to adapt provision to the technology.
Although there have been government and academic-led reports on the experiences of ethnic communities related specifically to Covid-19, unfortunately there is limited information regarding the experience of BAME communities in accessing stroke services during this time. Our Stroke Recoveries at Risk report did include responses from people from BAME communities, however the number of responses was not significant enough to draw any specific conclusion. This lack of data is something we are acutely aware of at the Stroke Association and over the next six to 12 months we will be developing our strategy related to tackling health inequalities across the whole stroke pathway. An important part of this will be co-creating our strategy with people from these communities to understand the barriers and challenges they face, so that we can start addressing these and influencing for action.
We need to carefully evaluate all the innovations adopted during the coronavirus pandemic. However, I think it is likely that therapy provision will become a hybrid model in future, with face-to-face provision at the beginning, then ongoing remote rehabilitation for those who prefer or can benefit from this channel. However, we must not under-estimate the power of face-to-face therapy provision, particularly for those with aphasia and cognitive impairment who currently experience digital exclusion.
Liam Healy - is a Consultant Stroke Physician and Geriatrician and Clinical Lead for Stroke in Cork University Hospital, Ireland. Cork University Hospital is the busiest inpatient stroke service in the country and one of two thrombectomy centres nationally.
Liam trained in Ireland as a Geriatrician and spent a number of years training in Edinburgh in Acute Medicine and Stroke before returning to Cork in 2015. He is a member of the Irish Clinical Advisory Group on Stroke and a Clinical Lecturer in University College Cork.
His talk on life after stroke: experiences in providing care in Ireland during COVID-19 can be viewed at 1:13:00 in the video.
Liam Healy Supporting Slides:
General Q&A:
CP: Yes, in particular for patients with severe disability that requires a good collaboration from person
JB: There is evidence to suggest that support with dealing with the psychological impact of stroke helps with adherence to medications and subsequent therapies.
BN: Scientifically this is still an open question. It is a difficult topic to study as so many factors influence depression and recovery.
CP: I’m not sure that stroke is so neglected in particular within the neuro rehabilitation field where the majority of patients is addressed on treatments of consequences of stroke disease.
JB: These are personal opinions from myself but I believe that stroke has been neglected for a number of reasons. It’s a relatively young medical sub-speciality with its own evidence base only starting around 30 years ago. It falls between ‘cardiovascular’ and ‘neurological’ conditions in terms of its classification and is not always mentioned as a condition in its own right. Stroke survivors do not have the voice that, for example, cancer survivors have because of the impact of the illness on people’s health wellbeing and their difficulty in speaking up and sharing their stories.
Previous market research work by the Stroke Association in the UK around the perception of stroke amongst the general population would suggest that for many people, stroke is poorly understood – it is not seen to be as ‘scary’ as cancer or heart attack and therefore doesn’t attract the same awareness and concern that these conditions do. Stroke is also very much perceived as only happening to very old people which again reduces the level of concern around the condition. And because the general public see it in this way and are less concerned/interested in it, this in turn means that it gets less coverage in the media and is generally less ‘acknowledged’ than other conditions. In turn potentially resulting in less financial support for stroke from donors. And thus less research as there is less funding available. Our new brand campaign was designed to address this lack of understanding/concern and we are making progress in changing public perception of stroke, but changing perceptions is a slow process which requires consistent and sustained messaging over a long period of time.
BN: The traditional reason is definitively that no specific acute therapy was available until a few decades ago. But even if that has changed, and we now have very effective acute therapies, there has been too little attention on life after stroke, and what it means for patients and carers in all different aspects. I think a common misconception is that there is little that can be done after the acute phase.
CP: YES
JB: Structured follow-up should happen at least once a year. The UK’s national stroke clinical guideline recommends that follow-up reviews should take place at six weeks, six months, 12 months, then annually thereafter
BN: This would be very reasonable for many good reasons. But I think there is a long way to get here: today almost all countries do not have even a routine systematic follow up after three to six months in place.
CP: Telemedicine needs the support of technologies and this is a main issue in low- and middle-income countries. This is the first problem. Then there are also economic issues. The health systems should support the costs. In Italy, in particular after the need of finding new possibilities, alternative to in-hospital treatment, the specialists in rehab are working to provide on this matter.
JB: We don’t have any definitive data on this, however we do know both anecdotally and from various pieces of market research that those in older age groups tend to be less techno-savvy and capable and this can be a barrier to accessing the internet/telemedicine. That said, we are also seeing that this is an area where the coronavirus pandemic has had a positive impact – the pandemic has upskilled many people, especially older generations – many of them will now do more online because they have been ‘forced’ to do so during the pandemic (“Positive Tech” has been identified as a key consumer trend influenced by Covid-19). Specific to stroke, we also know that people with communication difficulties find it particularly difficult to access these technologies
There’s plenty of work being done to retrospectively and quickly understand how digital health can support and improve the stroke pathway, and wider health services. For example, we recently contributed to this Patient’s Association report ‘Digital health during the pandemic: Learning lessons to maintain momentum’, which explores digital health used during the pandemic. Whilst the pandemic has accelerated use of technologies across the pathway, it’s vital that any changes during the pandemic are fully evaluated. Healthwatch have also produced a useful report to explore the rapid use of virtual consultations. Our Stroke Recoveries at Risk report stroke.org.uk/sites/default/files/campaigning/jn_2021-121.1_-_covid_report_final.pdf (p.36-39) shows that, whilst virtual healthcare has been well received by the majority (61%) of stroke survivors who used it during the pandemic, it is still not appropriate for everyone, and some of the barriers are explored in this report. We believe stroke services should evaluate and incorporate virtual models of stroke rehabilitation and support alongside face-to-face, offering people affected by stroke enhanced choice when accessing support. They should also engage with patients to make sure that no groups, including those with communication difficulties or those less digitally literate, are disadvantaged.
BN: Telemedicine has many advantages, but it is still unclear how good it is and to what extent it could replace visits in person after stroke. Telemedicine is attractive in many aspects, but before we rush into it, I would favour that the technique is properly evaluated.
Useful Resources:
Physical activity: ‘Getting active without sweat and lycra!'
We know that it is important that stroke survivors are active. This session will include a summary of the evidence base for physical activity, how therapists support stroke survivors to get and stay physically active, and a stroke survivor sharing their tips and experiences. We hope that the session will help to bust some common myths about physical activity and stroke, including that it’s not all about sweat and lycra!
"As OTs working on a stroke rehab ward, we think these videos are fantastic! We have come up with some amazing ways to use them for both for individuals and in groups :)"
"What an amazing journey thank you for sharing your experience to help us help others"
Intimacy and sex after stroke: how to start the conversation
The session shares insights from different perspectives and suggests how we might begin positive and open conversations about intimacy and sex. It also underlines the need for greater awareness about intimacy and sex after stroke
"Really useful for my work with people living with stroke."
"I have a much better understanding of the worries, fear and practical concerns that stroke survivors are dealing with in regards to sex and intimacy now. It will really help my work with stroke survivors going forward."
"I work in rehabilitation with people who have had brain injury and hearing [Diana] has helped me to understand better what some of our service users may be going through."
Intimacy and sex after stroke: how to start the conversation
Intimacy and sex are important. However, for many stroke survivors this is an uncomfortable subject with many struggling to come to terms with their ‘new’ body or identity and coping with the implications of this. Additionally, many healthcare professionals do not feel confident or able to talk about sex or to know how to best advise and support patients or their families.
Doug Youngson
Diana Wong Ramos
Ana Carvalheira
Doug Youngson - is a Learning and Development Trainer with the Stroke Association, UK. He has a Masters in Person-centred Psychotherapy and 12 years’ experience of supporting people affected by stroke and brain injury, through the Stroke Helpline and his own counselling practice.
Doug’s current work focusses on training staff in the skills needed to have difficult conversations. He is passionate about rebuilding lives after stroke and believes that conversations about sex are an important part of this.
His presentation on how to develop confidence and practical tips on how to have meaningful conversations for both healthcare professionals and stroke survivors can be viewed at 18:33 in the video.
Doug Youngson Supporting Slides:
The Stroke Association’s My Stroke Guide tool has accessible articles and videos with information about sex and relationships:
https://mystrokeguide.com/advice-and-information/physical/sex/advice
Different Strokes (a UK charity for younger stroke survivors) has a booklet and series of videos:
https://differentstrokes.co.uk/stroke-information/sex-and-relationships/
To manage limited mobility and spasticity, it is generally suggested that stroke survivors lie on the affected side. There are specific suggestions for positions in articles like this one:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27611652/
We can encourage people to experiment and find out what works for them, which can be fun way to bond with each other.
We can connect with our loved ones in lots of different ways, sometimes without words or with simple actions. Try to be creative and experiment to find new things that help you feel like a couple. This may take persistence and you may feel grief for things you have lost, so speak to your doctor or stroke team about emotional support that is available. It may help to think about things that brought you together. For example, if you both have a love of music, is there a way you can still enjoy that together?
Talk to your doctor for reassurance that you are doing everything possible to control your risk of stroke. The Royal College of Physicians (UK) guidelines state that stroke survivors can be reassured that sex is not contraindicated after a stroke and is extremely unlikely to cause another stroke. Consider making a decision not to have sex at first. You can build up to this with other forms of intimacy at a pace you feel comfortable with. Some stroke survivors have spoken about the need to balance carefulness with persistence, so do keep trying.
Diana Wong Ramos – Diana Wong Ramos was 34 years old and working as a journalist-editor for a magazine in Portugal when she had a Cerebral Venous Thrombosis stroke.
Diana could not walk but thanks to exhaustive work with a multidisciplinary rehabilitation team she began to regain some mobility and independence. Diana's life has changed to adapt to her new circumstances and she has a special interest in Patient Advocacy and Patient Engagement and was involved in the creation of the first Portuguese association of stroke survivors (Portugal AVC - Union of Survivors, Family and Friends www.portugalavc.pt and participated in the redesign of the Stroke Action Plan for Europe 2018-2030.
Watch the interview where Dianna discusses her story, focusing on wellbeing and healthy sexuality after stroke, and how healthcare professionals and stroke survivors can start this conversation. This can be viewed at 33:50.
I think there is no perfect timing... The most important thing is that there is desire on both sides and that the limits (if any!) of each one be respected. In my case, making love to my husband again contributed to increase my confidence in rehabilitation and, without a doubt, it made me feel like a woman, sexually attractive, despite the sequels of stroke.
After suffering a stroke my mobility was very compromised, my sensitivity too and the fear of suffering a new stroke was always latent. I think it would have been important to be accompanied by a sex therapist, just as I was by a psychologist or a nutritionist. Sexual health is often underestimated! And, in my opinion, this should not happen, not least because the healthy balance of our mental health is closely linked to the degree of satisfaction we derive from our sex life. That is my personal opinion!
In the acute phase of stroke, talking about intimacy or sex might be unreasonable. But during the long months that I was hospitalised in the rehabilitation clinic, with intensive sessions of physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychology and activities of daily living, it would have been very positive to speak with a sex therapist about my fears... When the doubts are many and the embarrassment does not let us talk sincerely, Google can be the only source of answers. Perhaps not always the most suitable ones.
Intimacy does not necessarily involve another person ... And if it is true that exchanging caresses with those we like is very pleasant, masturbation can also be very satisfying. There is no better feeling than to feel good about ourselves, with all our faults and virtues. If we do not like ourselves, we are unlikely to empathise with each other ... Alone or with a partner, the most important thing is to feel happy with the choice you make.
Dr Ana Carvalheira – has been a psychotherapist and sex therapist since 1996. She is Assistant Professor at ISPA (University Institute of Psychological Science) and researcher at William James Center for Research at IPSA.
Ana is a former President of the Portuguese Society of Clinical Sexology and associate member of the International Academy of Sex Research.
The full conversation between Diana and Ana can be viewed here:
Useful Resources:
Be inspired and share control: the added value of self-management support
This webinar shares new ways of thinking about and building the evidence base on self-management. Drawing on examples from research and clinical practice...
"Self-management is a form of strength... strength of knowledge, strength of understanding and in the strength to trust in your ability to problem solve with the tools you've been given."
"Self management seems to be about supporting a person to discover themselves within a supportive relationship and facilitating them to set goals and giving them the freedom to try things with support initially and then within their own environments and daily lives"
Be inspired and share control: the added value of self-management support
This webinar shares new ways of thinking about and building the evidence base on self-management. Drawing on examples from research and clinical practice, the session will inspire and challenge delegates to consider the potential of self-management support to deliver outcomes that matter most to stroke survivors.
Avril Drummond
Avril Drummond is Professor of Healthcare Research, and an occupational therapist, at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her main area of interest is stroke rehabilitation and she has undertaken large trials, studies and service evaluations.
Avril is a member of the Royal College of Physicians' Intercollegiate Working party for stroke, which produces the UK Stroke Clinical Guidelines. She is a former Chair of the UK Stroke Forum, she chaired the 'Life after stroke' domain for the Action Plan for Stroke in Europe and is a trustee of the UK Stroke Association.
Scott Ballard-Ridley
Scott Ballard-Ridley suffered a stroke in 2007 at the age of 22 which left him with significant physical impairments and without the use of his vision.
Prior to his stroke, Scott trained as a physiotherapist and since then he has worked in the NHS, for the Stroke Association and currently for social enterprise, Bridges Self-management, where he works with healthcare professionals on how they can work more collaboratively with patients in their care. Scott lives at home with his wife and three-year-old daughter.
Fiona Jones
Fiona Jones MBE is Professor of Rehabilitation Research at St George’s University of London and Kingston University. She has led multiple studies to evaluate self-management approaches within healthcare teams including in stroke, acute brain injury and major trauma.
In 2013, Fiona set up a social enterprise Bridges Self-management, which is an approach to self-management co-delivered with people living with complex long-term conditions and used by more than 500 acute and community rehabilitation teams across the UK. In 2014, Fiona led an NIHR funded study to evaluate the use of Experience–Based Co-Design to explore ways to increase therapeutic activity in stroke units, and is currently Co-lead for the Listen project (Long Covid Personalised Self-managemenT support- co-design and EvaluatioN). In 2017 Fiona was awarded an MBE for services to stroke rehabilitation.
Hanne Pallesen
Hanne Pallesen is a senior researcher and associated professor at the Hammel Neurocentre and University of Aarhus.
Hanne’s research interests include: remaking the body, disability, self-efficacy, self-management, self-identity and nature-based rehabilitation research, patient perspectives, interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral recovery after brain injury. She is a MSc and PhD supervisor, teacher and responsible for a Neurorehabilitation course at the Master Degree programme in Health Science, Aarhus University.
Mette Brandi
Mette Brandi is an occupational therapist, employed at the Neurocenter, Aarhus. She helped to develop and implement the Danish version of self-management STROKE 65+..
Lisa Kidd
Dr Lisa Kidd is Reader in Supported Self-Management in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing, University of Glasgow
Lisa's research interests include self-management, stroke, person-centred care, implementation science and patient and public engagement with research. Specifically, Lisa leads a programme of research focussing on the implementation of self-management support in stroke service provision, particularly how practitioners implement and embed self-management support, that is driven by people’s needs, experiences and priorities, in their practice and service provision.
Lisa inputs into the roll out of supported self-management as part of Scotland's Stroke Improvement Plan. She leads the Supported Stroke Self-Management Network, a network of practitioners, academics, policymakers with an interest in shaping stroke self-management research and practice, run in collaboration with Kingston/St George’s University, University of Southampton and Glasgow Caledonian University.
Life After Stroke: Caring for the Caregiver
This session explores some of the challenges faced by informal carers and the impact that caring for a stroke survivor might have on their life. It also showcases good practice examples of carer support and how to implement them.
Life After Stroke: Caring for the Caregiver
The emotional, physical and psychological effects of stroke can extend beyond the stroke survivor and their relationships with those closest to them are altered by the illness. Informal caregivers may struggle to adapt to their new role which can aggravate existing difficulties.
Carlo Semenza
Carla Mendes Pereira
Jana Dobrkovská
Carlo Semenza - is Professor Emeritus, formerly Professor of Psychobiology and Neuropsychology, at the University of Padova, Italy and a registered psychotherapist and psychologist.
He has a special interest in lexical semantics and the retrieval processes, studied through the observation of specific aphasic conditions and the influence of language and number processing on selective attention to space and has published over 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Carlo is affiliated to the International Neuropsychology Society, International Neuropsychology Symposium, Academy of Aphasia and Member of the Academia Europaea.
Carlo Semenza Supporting Slides:
Carla Mendes Pereira - is a lecturer at the Institute Polytechnic of Setubal, Portugal. Her PhD was on the research area of adaptation after stroke from the perspective of people who have suffered a stroke, their carers and health professionals.
Her research interests are neurorehabilitation after stroke, particularly on the impact and emotional changes after stroke, the immediate and long-term needs of both survivors and family members and on the process of goal setting in stroke rehabilitation.
Carla is a member of the Neurological Group of the Portuguese Association of Physiotherapists.
Carla Mendes Pereira Supporting Slides:
Jana Dobrkovská - has been the Director of Cerebrum - Association of People with acquired Brain Injuries in the Czech Republic since 2018.
Her early career was in the commercial and service industries before she moved in to health and science in 2015 after changing her personal approach to priorities in life.
Jana Dobrkovská Supporting Slides:
Useful Resources:
Listen to Jelka Jansa, Slovenian Stroke Support Society, talk about the burden of stroke among informal carers in Slovenia.
Listen to Katherine Staley, Stroke Association talk about the services available for carers in the UK