Author Archives: aida

In my second visit at Headway, the centre was quite empty, ranging from none to two users. As I found out, yoga just got cancelled for the day, so instead we folded calendars to send by mail to all members. It felt good, for me and a user, to do something useful for the rest of the community. Mr. X told me of lemonade he made and brang to Headway last week, and how he learned many new recipes since his injury. When the second user arrived, they both got very engaged in a conversation about hockey. Conversations were lively, but overall it made up for a very different experience than my first visit.

On my first visit, the group conversations I got complemented some of the issues we saw in class. An example is how challenging may it be to get back to work after TBI. Some members were trying to find a suitable job unsuccessfully; another was happy about her weekend job at a supermarket, for which the ride there was one and a half hours long from her home. She wished they could give her more hours, but she enjoyed being productive and self-providing. This is consistent with a study that showed a higher- subjective well being among people who succeeded to work after TBI than those who didn’t (O’Neill et al 1998).

Two of the members were training for the Paralympic Summer games. We talked about the training process, methods of para-athletic classifications (medical vs functional), as well as the inequalities between the Olympics and the Paralympics. Not only is the latter less covered by media, but I was surprised to be told that the COC compensate Canadian Olympic medallists with a cash prize, but not the Paralympic medallists–-even though they may need it more.

Canada got 16 medals in the Paralympics, entering the top three countries in number of gold medals.

But what impacted me the most was the move beyond group conversations. In my first visit, quickly some of the members trusted me as to have a more private conversation in which they shared with me their personal stories, their life pre-injury, the injury, and how everything changed since then. No amount of class can prepare one for these personal moments. It reminded me how important it is to enjoy life, as it comes. How false group dichotomies are: we will all be elderly, and it really takes some seconds to be in the position of members at Headway. Their issues are our issues: we can’t look away.

This was the question that was floating on my mind while I was heading to the Headway Centre.

First, as a center: there’s a bright and dark side to the institution model from the perspective of the user. In one hand, centers are usually better prepared and count with more resources than probably would be accessible to the person otherwise, in one centralized location; users can socialize and get to know each other with plenty of time. On the other hand, institutions are often the only option. Some persons may not necessarily want to go there, but when  find themselves in need after an unfortunate event, going to an institution may effectively be the only way to get certain service (e.g. palliative care, mobility assistance). On top of that, centers are often run by efficiency concerns: sometimes they fall into high ratios of users per staff, limited privacy, activities and services being scheduled and not up to the user’s will, and the user may feel forced to socialize with or when they don’t want to. Alienation may occur if the user tries to facilitate how things operate, putting himself, his autonomy and agency last for the common good. This is a pressing issue when instead of being a temporary situation (e.g. hospital, drug center) the user has a profile that makes that likely to be a long-term situation –e.g. older adults, persons with intellectual disabilities, terminal illnesses, and maybe TBI survivors.

Second, what is rehabilitation for TBI? As far as I’m concerned, there’s not much known about which exercises or therapies may help recover function. On top of that, TBI survivors have a very heterogeneous range of abilities and impairments, so it was hard to imagine which group activities may be conducted and how could they lead to a progressive recover of function, if such thing is possible.

I was thus curious how the Headway Center would deal with these concerns.

After being there, my impressions are positive. The centre is rather small, and run in a drop by basis when they wish –-like a place where to hang out! There’s no obligation to participate in particular activities; and users have some degree of active role in, for instance, taking care of the common areas, making a tour for new volunteers like me, providing input, and especially caring about one another. This makes it feel like it is not only Headway’s, but their center, and they made one in which the environment feels very positive and welcoming, a safe space. I believe the staff contribution has been essential to get to this. As for rehabilitation, I think there must be something good about keeping oneself busy with different activities, especially if perspectives on finding a suitable employment are limited.

I wonder if there are other centers for TBI survivors, and how they operate. Does anyone know?