Making Sense of Neurological Recovery: Enhancing engagement and self-practice

Sally Davenport, Programme Lead for the MSc in Neurophysiotherapy, UCL

This presentation will explore how individuals post stroke experience and make sense of the stroke pathway from the sub-acute to chronic stages of recovery. It will examine why some aspects of rehabilitation are visible and embraced, while others are not – and how this selective perception influences their actions and inactions. People recovering from stroke are newcomers to a world they did not anticipate nor want. They see and interpret their surroundings and experiences through the lens of what they know – and, more crucially, what they do not yet understand – about stroke, recovery, and rehabilitation.

The talk is based on findings from an ethnography which explored learning and being a learner in a rehabilitation setting. The findings showed that recovery involved a complex process of new learning that was imposed by the sudden change to health status. The participants were not passive recipients of their treatment but instead tried, often on the basis of very limited knowledge and understanding, to make sense of what they were experiencing. They looked for alignment between the input they received (the teaching) and what they expected and wanted to be doing (their desired learning). Where and when this was present, the curriculum of rehabilitation made sense to them. This coherence or not between teaching and learning positively impacted rehabilitation engagement and emotional well-being.