Comments on:

COGNITIVE REHABILITATION WORKSHOP FOR PHYSIOTHERAPISTS

• I have learned why I am doing the worksheets that I use in my centre, as a result of this course

• I now have a better understanding of how all the cognitive terms link together

• I now have a better awareness of why problems are occuring

• I can now link up better with our Occupational therapy staff who have been on your courses already

• In collaboration with my colleagues I now see how I can work on the cognitive issues with patients who don't do work with the occupational therapists and psychologists - patients who don't want to do cognitive work. I can use the physical medium to help the cognitive problems resolve without the patient knowing this is happening!

• As a result of this course I now feel much happier with goal setting; rather than waiting for patients to come up with their own goals I will educate them more in order to empower them to make the right choices

• This course has empowered me to go to my manager to get cognitive services input as we don't do it yet (from a therapist working in adult stroke)

• I know we now often overload the patients, and I need to take this into account and take my therapy bit by bit

• This course has taught me how important it is to work together in a team and to see the patient holistically as a whole person - rather than just looking at the physical components

• I will now be much more structured in sessions - not chopping and changing as I feel; I will be more persistent to ensure the patient receives better chances of recovery

• I will now devote more time to preparation and review in my therapy

• After completing this course I reviewed what we are doing in my centre, and I now realise that there are too many things going on. I intend to give my patients more time to think and I will only work on one thing at a time to ensure I get a good response, rather than working on lots of things and getting nowhere

• I will look at the cognitive value in doing physical activities more now

• This course has made me more aware of grading - keeping things simple and stable for lower level patients, and gradually grading the cognitive and physical demands up to a more normal environment for higher level patients

• I am now convinced of the importance of educating relatives and carers to ensure that what we do as therapists carries on outside of therapy sessions, and to ensure that they do not overload the patient - with the result that therapy gains are often undone

• I intend to put better support in for the family now. I will be reexaming the allocation of our resources to do this

• Our understanding of certain patients has now changed - particularly of those in the stage of post traumatic amnesia. We intend to review our approach to dealing with patients in this stage with the aim of making our treatments more appropriate - taking the cognitive limitations into account

• This course has tied in with a recent course I attended on 'practising skills following stroke'. Some important concepts have been reinforced, particularly the need to structure the practice. This course has provided me with more evidence to support this approach

• The cognitive models and hierarchy make this whole area of cognitive issues much clearer