PhysioUpdate News 31st August 2023

In an exclusive PhysioUpdate Q&A, physiotherapist Ellie Kinnear outlines the aims of a unique book that she and her colleagues wrote to highlight ways to improve the quality of life for people with neurological conditions in the community. Editor Ian A McMillan poses the questions

Q. What prompted you to edit and co-author MAKING A DIFFERENCE?

I and my fellow authors from, lengthy, hard, and sometimes bitter, experience, know there are ways and means to make things better, much better, for all those with neurological conditions, their families and their carers.

Through long experience, I know that people are much more disabled than they need to be and that this impinges on the lives of their family and on the community, where the key is helping people to know how to help themselves.

There are many examples in the book of how improvements can be made – organisationally, medically and socially – but no one is putting it together, explaining it and publicising it. This is what prompted us to write MAKING A DIFFERENCE: Integrated Ongoing Neurological Support in the Community.

In a large section of the book, 19 individuals – those with neurological conditions and carers – describe their experiences and how they benefited from the integrated support in the community that is provided by the medical charity Integrated Neurological Services (INS), which operates in the London boroughs of Hounslow and Richmond. Other important chapters cover advances in rehabilitation, how issues can be addressed and summarise best practice based on lessons gained from experience.

The INS approach is to support the person and the family at holistically at the time of diagnosis until the end of life. The emphasis is on helping them to return to, or keep within, their community to improve or maintain as good a quality of life for all concerned.