Brain and Spinal Tumours

Brain and spinal tumours form in the brain or spinal cord, which make up the central nervous system.

What are Brain and Spinal Tumours?

Brain and spinal tumours are abnormal growths of tissue that are found either in the brain or the spinal cord. These tumours are not preventable, and the cause is often unknown.

While some tumours don't cause any symptoms, others can damage healthy cells, press on sensitive body tissue, or block the flow of blood, and can impair the function of either body parts.

These tumours don't always mean cancer. They can be:

Benign (noncancerous): These tumours do not spread to other parts of the body and may not require treatment.
Malignant (cancerous): These tumours invade the surrounding tissue and can spread to other parts of the body. Sometimes, surgery can remove these tumours, however surgery can't completely remove tumours that have spread around the body.

There are treatments available to keep brain and spinal tumours from getting worse, especially when detected early, such as radiation treatment and chemotherapy.

How Can Brain and Spinal Tumours Affect You?

Not all individuals will experience a brain or spinal tumour in the same way. However, headaches are the most common brain tumour symptom and those with spinal cord tumours often experience back pain as an early symptom.

Symptoms of a brain tumour can include seizures, cognitive and behavioural changes, or problems with sleep, memory, and speech.

Spinal cord tumour symptoms can include sharp pain or tingling in the back that may be constant, motor problems, numbness, and bowel or bladder control issues.

Other possibile symptoms can include weakness, fatigue, paralysis, and lack of coordination and balance.

What Services Can We Provide?

Neurological rehabilitation

Fatigue management

Home environment adaptation

Education and support

Neuro Occupational Therapy With Brain and Spinal Tumours

When living with a brain or spinal tumour, individuals can often face issues completing their daily activities and routines due to the symptoms of their condition, or due to the treatment they're having.

Our neurological occupational therapists can support in the education and management of symptoms such as balance, memory, attention, neurological fatigue, and weakness.

We can also recommend adaptive equipment or modified techniques and tools for an individual's needs, as well as assessing an individual's home environment to ensure the individual's safety.

When speaking to neurological occupational therapist, Anna, she said this about brain and spinal tumour intervention: "Mindful nature observations helped to ease the cognitive symptoms. Using sight, hearing, smell, touch, and temperature senses while my beneficiary was sitting in the garden helped rest cognitive fatigue and overload.

"Encouraging my beneficiary to focus on certain sensory processes and link in with mindful breathing helps to rest their higher-level cognitive functions and connect with the earth and nature."

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What others says

I am always so impressed by the therapist’s commitment to and ongoing understanding of Claire and her situation. I am sure the rest of the family will share my thoughts so please pass on our heartfelt thanks to the therapy team when you next see them. Sister of brain injury survivor
I just wanted to drop you a line to say, whenever I call the office, Claire, in particular, is always very charming and efficient. She is a good representative of your company and has a nice phone manner and a good approach to customer service. So, thank you Claire. Mother of brain injury survivor
The following will never be enough to illustrate Paul’s journey but we are eternally grateful to the NHS, IM, ILS, Krysalis and the whole infrastructure that has been created for Paul. Yes, Paul is focused, determined and driven but the whole team have created a rehabilitation environment that has changed our life and Pauls future, they have made the thought of life and rehabilitation, turn from the impossible to the possible. Brother of brain injured survivor
The thought of having the family undertake this journey alone seems impossible and we will be always grateful. We all recognise that James is still on the rehabilitation journey, but there is no stopping him. He has just walked to Mum’s & Dad’s on his own (phone first to say he’s on his way)... what a way to celebrate the 2-year journey.Brother of brain injured survivor
I highly recommend Krysalis Consultancy OT services. Anna has been our life line since she came on board to help my husband following his brain injury. He has improved greatly thanks to Anna’s input in assisting him to become independent, teaching him step by step the simple things which we all take for granted. Anna is there for us 100%, teaching us both strategies to enable us to achieve better results.Wife of brain injured survivor
Just a short note to thank you very much for your hard work and persistence over the last few months, your guidance has undoubtedly helped and taken the pressure off me (I have benefited from the sessions greatly). I am really encouraged by the last few weeks and optimistic that if Peter keeps working at it he will continue to make good progress.Brother of brain injured survivor

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