Neuro rehabilitation - a moral right?
Should neuro rehabilitation be a moral right? This leading brain injury light thinks so…
Neurorehabilitation has been singled out in Parliament as “a moral imperative” to prevent cruelty to brain injury survivors after they leave hospital.
Rhondda MP Chris Bryant, leading a debate on Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) on the 2nd July 2019, told the Commons:
“There is a cruelty if all we do is save somebody’s life but do not give them life in all its fullness.”
His comments came after a national report showed 94 per cent of brain injured patients who received the neurorehabilitation they needed “ended up able to live far more independent lives”.
Despite the findings, however, understanding the value of neurorehabilitation at a national and local level was lacking, stressed Mr Bryant, who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for ABI.
“Substantial, robust, clinical and cost-effective evidence emphatically supports the role and value of neurorehabilitation.”
MP Chris Bryant, Chair of APPG for Acquired Brain Injury.
A “prescription” for neurorehabilitation is currently being rolled out across the UK after the report by the UK’s Acquired Brain Injury Forum (UKABIF) called for greater cohesion between services in the brain injury sector.
But Mr Bryant pointed to neurorehabilitation in particular as the main route to giving brain injury survivors “as much quality of life as is humanly possible”.
He added: “Somebody who has had a major traumatic brain injury…may at first need four or five people to feed them, clothe them, wash them and provide all the basics of their daily life.”
“However, effective neurorehabilitation over a sustained period can and often does mean that they need just one person. Or, in an ideal world, it gives them back the independent life that they had before, in as large a measure as possible.” He went on to say “The good news from the report is that the rehabilitation prescription…is being steadily rolled out across the whole country. That means that patients and their families can say: ‘This is what we know we should be getting; we want to make sure that we are getting it.’”
Formed in 2017 to raise brain injury awareness, the APPG on ABI is a voice for those who are not always heard.
The report, Acquired Brain Injury and Neurorehabilitation – Time for Change’, followed a series of meetings with ABI experts on issues including education, criminal justice, sport-related concussion and the welfare benefits system.
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