Film series aims to act as an educational resource for healthcare professionals who work with those who have had a stroke and live with aphasia
By Mr George Wigmore (Senior Communications Officer), Published
Speech and language therapists from the School of Health & Psychological Sciences (SHPS) at City, University of London have produced a series of films that aim to help healthcare professionals support the emotional recovery of people after a stroke and aphasia.
A stroke can be life-changing, and around 100,000 people have one each year in the UK. Stroke can affect anyone, and it is a leading cause of adult disability, including language disability. One third of people post-stroke have aphasia, a complex language and communication disorder resulting from damage to the language centres of the brain which can have a devastating impact on a person’s life and relationships.
The ideas for the videos came out of workshops with four people with aphasia and two family members. Topics covered in the co-produced videos include information on aphasia and what staff can do to help, support measures and interactions that boost service users’ psychological wellbeing, aspects which hinder their wellbeing, and communication issues.
The videos can be accessed on YouTube and they will also be hosted on the dedicated City Access – Resources For Aphasia (CARA) website, which shares training, therapy packages and assessment resources for clinicians and researchers working with people with aphasia, with the aim of giving greater access to the evidence-based tests and therapies for aphasia developed at City.
The SHPS team who have worked on this project are Dr Sarah Northcott, Senior Lecturer, Dr Katerina Hilari, Professor of Acquired Communication Disorders, Dr Abi Roper, Speech and Language Technologist, Lydia Davis, Clinical Academic, and Amanda Comer, Research Assistant.
Dr Northcott said:
Dr Roper said:
“The videos were driven by people with aphasia, and that’s one of the key things about them. We first held a number of workshops with people with aphasia and their families. The core messages from the workshops fell into two categories: behaviours that harmed emotional wellbeing; and helpful behaviours. Workshop members felt strongly that these messages should be heard by all healthcare staff, not just those who elect to go on specialist training courses, so we worked with Copperwheat Media to bring the ideas from those sessions to life.”
The four videos are as follows:
- 'Psychological journeys after stroke and aphasia: Jo and Michael’s stories' – outlines their initial stroke, interactions which supported/hindered their psychological wellbeing, and finding ways to live well after their stroke.
- 'A family member’s perspective on humanising stroke care' – covers the difficulty communicating with medical staff; the impact of feeling told off; the value of asking family members how they are, the strain on family members, and holding on to hope.
- 'Psychological care after a stroke and aphasia: what we can all do to help' – a training video aimed at healthcare staff. It covers background information about aphasia, what healthcare staff can do to support emotional wellbeing, what healthcare staff do that damages psychological recovery, and three steps we can take tomorrow to support patient's wellbeing.
- 'A Christmas Day stroke: John’s story' – John's life before the stroke, the impact of the stroke, and his life now.
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