Rehabilitation activities out of the house?

[Plenty]

Has anyone got any good rehabilitation activities to do outside of the home for a brain injured person?

They will be assisted with a support worker, but looking for idea for where to go and visit or activities to do.

Maybe helping with social or cognitive skills or just helping with confidence.

All ideas welcome.

And what has helped you already from past experience etc...

Thank you in advance.

[randomphantoms]

Try walkingforhealth.org.uk

The group I go to are amazing and I know that there are groups specialising in walking with people with more mobility issues.

[Fificakes2]

I go to a music room and play guitar and sing, I love it and it doesn't matter if you're any good because everyone there is really supportive. It's like hanging out in a pub chill out but not because it's safe and you can listen to music.

Of course it depends if they like playing music.

[pinkvision]

Hi, I would start by going to a place in nature, not too busy with people, noise and bright lights. I remember starting to go out of the house and it was all a bit of a shock and was really difficult and the first steps to understanding the type of brain injury I had.

I would say be aware of the environment and learn what has bad effects and how to adapt. It will be a process and may take time. It depends of course on the brain injury and how it has manifested. Concentration, memory, visual, audible and balance issues may play a factor. Hope it goes well, keep notes they will come in really handy at a later date.

[sospan]

With the rehab activities they need to be a balance of fun and intentional things that are being incorporated to improve their abilities. Whilst we don't know the specifics of the person typical you want to include things build up on stamina, balance, cognitive skills, planning, reading, tolerating wide open spaces, people, noise, bright lights etc.

So something like going for a short walk and going to a quiet cafe. It can be used to build up stamina and balance. In the cafe it gives them a chance to recover but also get used to being in public. Picking things from a menu also subconsciously helps with decision making and planning. Later on it can be built up by the person ordering at the cafe and then paying with coins. Which will help with confidence and arithmetic skills.

One particular challenge I had was crossing the road. I was fine if there was a single car but if there was two or more, I would see the second car but not relate that it hadn't passed yet and step out. Quite a few near misses.

There are quite a few challenges which the uninjured take for granted; going to hair dresser / barbers, going clothes shopping, food shopping etc.

Cooking is a really good challenge and an activity that has a purpose but can run for a few days; day 1 pick a recipe and work out the ingredients. Day 2 go and get the ingredients, day 3 prepare the dish. I stumbled upon cooking by accident and my first attempt a cottage pie took me well over 3 1/2 hours to make and cook !

There are a lot of activities to do but bear in mind they can go wrong very quickly and you need to be able to exit and get back home quite quickly. It happened to me once, when we out shopping, all I tried to do was remember what coat my daughter wore and I just went into a complete tizz and had to go home. Remembering about the coat had nothing to do with the activity it was just something that came up in a conversation. So you really have to plan for the unexpected.

All the best and seasons wishes

[Plenty in reply to sospan]

Yes, it sounds like just getting out is a good start and then progress to planning future days out.

Planning and decision making are possible what adds to some people with a frontal lobe injury just not going out?

Part of the “unseen” TBI rehabilitation.

[sospan in reply to Plenty]

I went to Tesco last week, the first time in ages. Nearly 8 years on it was still painful - bright lights, huge layout and of course they keep on moving things from shelf to shelf which confuses your average person let alone someone with a HI.

Paying for things used to be really hard because I couldn't count the change - despite degrees in maths

One good very good thing for people with frontal lobe issues - jigsaws. There is a lot around the planning, pattern matching plus rotating the shapes to fit that they can develop plus you can get them cheap from the charity shops at the moment

[randomphantoms in reply to sospan]

The counting change thing.

Oh boy does that bring back memories of almost being arrested more than once for arguing that I was being short changed.

The number of times I had to produce my Headway card.

I am not good with tech and wouldn't trust myself with all this contactless nonsense.

My work around for it is.........get a fixed amount of money out and put it in an empty purse or wallet.

Just do whatever you need to and keep all the receipts.

When you get home and rest then do your sums.

Most of the time my change is exactly right but I am probably about 90 pence better off by the end of a year.