Wendy Coleman, our Homes Manager at Duston Rd, represented us at the World Congress on Brain Injury in Scotland last month. She really enjoyed the event and especially liked meeting many of the Delegates. Some of the types of people she got to meet and share ideas with were people from away (the international Delegates); neurosurgeons; rehabilitation physicians; psychologists; speech and language specialists; Occupational Therapists; physiotherapists; Social Workers; Legal professionals in the industry and Case Managers.

One of the main elements that caught Wendy’s attention was about the kind of research and care provided in different Countries. She got the impression that there seems to be a lack of services for After Care or Residential Care abroad (like the kind of service we offer at Richardsons). Obviously as part of attending an event of this magnitude on this specialist subject, it was a great opportunity to get to know the other exhibitor’s and network with the professionals in our industry.

On the first day, the seminar called “Rehabilitation of Challenging Behaviour” was really insightful and was delivered as a panel of experts chaired by Rodger Wood PhD. The speakers talked about:

• the management of the confused-agitated patient in the acute phase of recovery
• cognitive behavioural approaches in the rehabilitation of challenging behaviour
• a community rehabilitation approach to managing challenging behaviour
• a neurobehavioral approach to the management of serious aggressive behaviour.

On the third day, the session called “Long Term Survival and Life Expectancy After Head Injury” was a session where (for the first time) mortality and the cause of death were discussed and the findings from some long term case studies between the US and the UK were shared with the attendees. Thomas McMillian PhD (Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology from the University of Glasgow), presented his talk entitled “Mortality 13 Years after a Head Injury: A Prospective Investigation” which really hit home the full impact on a person who has an acquired injury…over an extended period of time – helping us to understand the nuances of the initial, short term, medium term and long term effects that carers or rehabilitation workers need to be (1) aware of and be able to (b) include this vital knowledge into their care/rehabilitation path.

As a nice close to the event, we received some great feedback as some delegates that Wendy got to speak to already knew of Richardsons. One Case Manager in particular, who has placed a Service User in our care, gave positive feedback on the progress we had made with this Service User and the standard of care we provide.

Since Wendy returned from Edinburgh, we have also received a positive lead from a lady who deals with catastrophic injury who didn’t know about us before Edinburgh. Over all – a superb event…very well attended and we got a lot out of being there.