Rehabilitation Pioneers

Rodger Wood and Mike Oddy look back at the Trust's move into brain injury rehabilitation in the early 1990s.

Rodger Wood: In the 1980s I was working in California developing community-based rehabilitation services for people who had suffered a brain injury, maybe as a result of a car accident or stroke. The Disabilities Trust approached me and asked if I would help them develop something similar in the UK.

Mike Oddy: At that time all brain injury rehabilitation in the UK took place in hospital. The Disabilities Trust was proposing a different, more community-based approach. I remember being impressed. I could see the approach was realistic and could work.

RW: The Trust's first brain injury service opened in Milton Keynes in 1991. We wanted the service to be based in the community and have a non-institutional feel, because the goal of post-acute rehabilitation is to reintegrate people into their communities. Professionals from all the relevant disciplines worked together in inter-disciplinary teams too, which was pretty radical then.

MO: At the time it was far more common to emphasise the physical aspects of brain injury, whereas the Trust was focussing on changing behaviour - what we termed the 'neurobehavioural approach'.

RW: Appropriate social behaviour is the key to successful rehabilitation. It's not just about fixing arms and legs so that people can walk and talk again. It's about making sure that what they say and do when they recover these abilities is socially appropriate, allowing them to re-integrate into society.

MO: It's also become clearer that people can continue to benefit from rehabilitation even ten years or more after their injury. We didn't understand that so clearly 10-15 years ago.

RW: We've learned a lot about how people with brain injury learn. They learn by doing, not by understanding. Therefore, community-based rehabilitation is about helping people re-establish social and functional habit patterns that contribute to independent living.

MO: The way we measure success has enlarged too. We don't just base our success on whether people can carry out specific tasks, but whether they have the skills to undertake the roles that are important in their lives - whether as a parent, employee, partner or friend.

Rodger Wood was Clinical Director of The Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust, a division of The Disabilities Trust, until 2001. Mike Oddy is the current Clinical Director.

Back to 'A Trust Remembered'.

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