Brain Tree Training

Comments on:

Cognitive Rehabilitation Workshop for Professionals

I wanted to thank you for such an inspiring course this weekend. I went to work on Monday full of enthusiasm and found myself much better equipped to educate my patients and answer their questions with confidence and clarity. I have found the 5 headings of the cognition pyramid particularly helpful

Thank you for a great couple of days - I really enjoyed the course, the material is invaluable and I look forward to implementing what I have learnt with my patients and relatives

Fantastic course!

This course will significantly improve my practice as it provided me with lots of information and resources

Brilliant course - thank you so much. You have changed my awareness of cognition and shown me my role in cognitive rehabilitation

Very interesting and fascinating course content. Looking forward to using the materials

Fantastic course, very engaging speakers with a huge amount of knowledge

Thank you for such a professionally presented course. The way it was presented took away the mystery and fear of cognitive rehabilitation and helped me to learn so much

Very engaging speakers

The trainers were very inclusive, friendly and easy to approach

Fantastic teaching and environment to learn. I felt relaxed and ready to take new information in

The training provided structure for clinical thinking to support assessment and guide treatment intervention and discharge planning. I feel I have been provided with a 'bible' to use and refer back to whilst I am learning to implement it all

Following my attendance at the cog rehab course last week, i just wanted to say a massive thank you to you both. I really enjoyed the course and really feel it will change my practice. Its without a doubt the best course I've ever attended and I am looking forward to putting it into practice

The 2-day course was a fantastic experience for me; the level of detail and knowledge conveyed in such a short time frame was hugely valuable. On a small team, time out for training needs to be effective and time efficient to add value. It was certainly this. We have used the course materials to inform our planning and build a teaching plan that has enabled us to help the clients understand their impairments and see the value of putting strategies in place. They (and we!) appreciate the clarity of the cognitive modules; we constantly refer to them so that their understanding is consolidated, and the clients see that their difficulties are not their 'fault' but are because of their injury. The realisation and developing awareness as a result of this is benefitting many of them and making our planning and delivery so much more effective.

I attended a course a few months ago and it has revolutionised my practice particularly with regard to cognitive rehab and being able to explain attention. OT is suddenly something that is respected and listened to rather than something that is scraped off the bottom of your shoe! Brain injury rehab is not all about mobility!

I found the workshop immensely helpful to my work as a psychologist working in a rehabilitation hospital for people who have sustained brain injuries. I want to say thank you to both of you for the workshop

I would please like to say a massive thank you to Anne and Kit for a hugely valuable and enjoyable two day workshop at Gatwick. It was everything I had hoped it might be and more. As someone else on the course said, it is like you have gathered up all the pieces of a complex puzzle and made a picture. I learned a huge amount, feel more confident, am keen to put ideas into practice and also learn more

Thank you so much again, this course has truly transformed many clinicians approaches to treatment. I often see the team with their green Brain Tree Training manuals next to them when planning treatment interventions and approaches

I would like to thank both Kit and Anne for the fantastic training, although my workplace use the Brain Tree Training approaches and materials in rehabilitation I had little understanding of what it was all about until I completed the training. I will be able to use the information gained as well as educating others on brain injuries.

Thank you for a thought provoking workshop last weekend. I came away with a list of 17 things I would like to introduce to our NHS Stroke Therapy Service, ranging from adding a slide to our education material to reconsidering how we assess and treat attention problems

Thank you so much for the workshop, it was truly the best I have been to! (And I love courses so I have been to a fair few!!) My mind Is already working on all the things I cannot wait to implement on Monday morning! Very few therapy courses are presented in such a logical and interactive manner and it was such a pleasure to see! It has definitely helped me to get the information in - I will follow up on how well I manage to apply it! I also did the meditation exercise last night - I am in the 75%! it was amazing! Thank you for adding to both my professional practice and personal development!

I found the workshop to be a very clear and informative course with a very accessible teaching style

Many thanks for a very useful, informative and challenging course (in a good way! ) - a great way to add to our clinical skills and especially add credibility and confidence in an area of practice in which I think OT can shine

Absolutely amazing. Evidenced based but presented in practical useful ways

This was fantastic, it has definitely shaped my future OT practice

Fantastic course. I have learnt so so much! I feel reenergised and excited to work with my clients!

A really great course with interesting and applicable content. I will take away a lot.

Fantastic, professionally and intellectually challenging course. Challenge conception of current best practice

Course is very relevant to all therapists, not only OTs

Excellent, well organised. Can definitely translate to practice

Well presented with well detailed workbook. Going to be able to transfer ideas back into my workplace

Fantastic presenters that have simplified their experience and knowledge to make it clear and easier to understand

Excellent presenters, clearly presented and good content and easy to follow models

Excellent informative content, learnt so much

Well structured; organised course with great coursebook which allow you to follow course material with ease

Excellent teaching style, very engaging

Very interesting course. Presenters very engaging. Covered relevant information to my work. Though provoking

Fantastic. Excellent presenters - fun, precise, informative

Excellent. Easy to follow and understand

Very well organised and presented

Wonderful, inspiring

Fantastic framework and clarity. Thanks for the structure for a complex area

Very well presented and prepared and which has answered a few of my questions and cleared my confusion

Inspiring, knowledgeable and relevant course with passionate presenters

Wonderful! Very useful information. I will hope to apply all information to my clinical practice.

This was a brilliant course. Practical, informative, usable. Presenters approachable/knowledgable

This was up there with the most valuable well presented course I have ever attended - over many years.

Very well organised and logical - thanks

Great course, clear, precise and useful information

Fantastic, invaluable training, delivered in a very clear manner

Very good, has helped me reflect on my current practice

Thankyou for sharing you wealth of knowledge

I found this really valuable and inspiring - lots to implement back at work

I have gained a lot from the workshop. It has clarified a lot for me and I cannot wait to start using what I have learnt with our client group.

Thank you for arranging this - it will change my practice

Very good learning materials and presentation. The clinical experience of the presenters is very valuable and helpful for my understanding of the topic.

Thoroughly enjoyed this course and would highly recommend it. I found it very beneficial.

Very useful for my practice. I feel very inspired to put in to practice tomorrow!

You have inspired me and allowed me to feel a lot more comfortable with working in the area of BI. I cannot wait to start my new position!

Will be able to use models in practice

Thank you. Fantastic opportunity

Really Great!! Thanks for sharing. Fantastic

I took away from the course a lot of practical tools that I have since implemented into my practice - thank you for this as it is very difficult to find a course that you can implement information straight away. Thank you for the new motivation.

I felt the content was very relevant to my field of work and have already started to implement it.

I thought the workshop was very informative and it helped me look at cognition in a whole new light.

The information I learned and the changes I have implemented into my practice since have been invaluable.

Both Kit and Anne understand the complexities faced by clinicians working with clients with cognitive deficits, having worked in the area themselves for many years. The workshop was at times challenging and complex, however Kit and Anne are excellent at providing multiple practical and relevant clinical examples to apply the theory / model.

Assessing and treating cognitive deficits can be overwhelming and confusing. At times one deficit can appear intertwined with another and it can be difficult to work out where to start, or even how to interpret assessment results. Attending this workshop provided me with a simple and clear understanding of cognitive hierarchies, making assessment and treatment of cognitive deficits more structured and organised. I have since changed the way I approach cognitive rehabilitation and have much more confidence in my clinical rationale.

The workshop presenters, Mr Kit Malia and Ms Anne Brannagan, are both highly respected international experts in cognitive rehabilitation. Their depth of knowledge pertaining to cognition is astounding, and they are both very approachable and highly motivating professionals. They exude an infectious passion for cognitive rehabilitation that is hard to resist.

I was so so inspired by this course. I think what I valued the most was being equipped with evidence and practical examples, that work, that I can then use with patient's to get their buy in and belief in the tools I am using to try to help them.... I will be back!

I wanted to mention how beneficial and educational I found this course. It served to reassure my clinical reasoning with the process training I was doing with my patients whilst further developing my clinical skills.

I want to say how much I enjoyed your course. I refer to the material very frequently. You and Anne truly changed my practice.

This was an excellent course. Very in-depth, well presented and informative

I really enjoyed the course and have already changed my practice as a result!

Thank you for the training. It was an excellent training package, as well as a useful time for networking with other therapists.

It was a great course and I am very excited to start implementing what I learned.

Thank you for a brilliant course on Friday and Saturday. I learned a lot and am finding the workbook very useful now back at work

I found the course very useful

I just wanted to say again how much I enjoyed the Cognitive Rehabilitation workshop that finished yesterday. As an OT who is new to Neuro I found the information and the way it was presented excellent. It was logical, hugely informative and fun. I am now sat at home planning how I can implement some of the course work into my every day practice.

Thanks to you and Anne for an amazing and practice-changing course. I will definitely be looking out for future learning opportunities and recommending your courses to everyone my work brings me into contact with.

I am writing to thank you, and complement you, on this excellent course. Beautifully presented and engaging throughout, I learnt a tremendous amount. My plan is to feedback the course info to the acute and community OT teams, with the intention of introducing this as a consistent approach. Whilst a long week, I came away from the course buzzing, refreshed, and reminded why I love OT!

I thoroughly enjoyed the two days and would also like to pass on my thanks to Anne and Kit. Their delivery of the course was very motivational and inspiring and they are experts at keeping the audience engaged through their use of humour and real life examples. Although I had purchased the "How to do Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy" books a couple of years ago the content now makes much more sense having had it explained in this excellent way.

I found this to be the most useful and interesting course I have been on. It targetted exactly my needs and was delivered in a very interesting, dynamic and easy to understand way. I found that although it is a lot of information, my brain was taking it all in in a comfortable way so it was really useful. The notes are essential and I do look back at them to ensure I am remembering it well and getting the information solidified properly. Following the training I organised a newly started Cognitive Group much better including an important component on Education and allowing patients to discuss things together. I have also done a presentation on Information Processing doing an example of how it feels to be overloaded all the time by giving the group a task to do in a different language. It triggered the exact behavioural responses I desired (frustration, withdrawal and some laughter). Your training was inspiring. I have recommended the course to other professionals, physios and OTs as I find the physios always asking me to explain more to them about cognition. What I found most helpful is that you create a structure to aid clinicians address cognition and to aid patients to understand it. Cognition being so complex this structure is a key aspect that helps orient treatment and guide clinical reasoning. Thanks again for the great course.

I found the course excellent and have already put many of the principles into my practice

I just wanted to say that I found this course extremely motivating. I only wish our undergraduate training had been as comprehensive! I feel far more confident in my professional judgement and identity since doing the course and have recommended it to colleagues. I also feel far more confident doing cognitive assessments with the knowledge that it is possible to do something about them rather than just relying on compensatory strategies. I am planning to raise the assessment and treatment of cognitive problems as an issue for debate at our next professional meeting and am working with colleagues to develop our range of strategies in this area

I did this workshop in January 2007. It was the most useful training I have done during my time in neurology; it really set me up for my practice

I thoroughly enjoyed the course and got so much out of it, I would have no hesitation attending another one

I just wanted to say, that from a Physio perspective, I have been completely blown away by this course. It was well organised and presented so well and I cannot believe how much my clinical practice has been affected - I am looking at things in a completely different light! I now have even more respect and understanding of the importance of the input given by our OTs. The course has given me an insight into how cognitive issues may impact upon the effectiveness of my physiotherapy input (which I previously considered but saw more as a block to therapy than something we could improve or compensate for) and also how the MDT needs to work more effectively with a better understanding of cognition in general. I have already downloaded your course notes from the "Cognitive Rehabilitation and the Physiotherapist" course and will be modifying it to feedback to my physio colleagues as soon as possible

Just to say many thanks for the Training at the weekend, it was energizing, inspiring and really made me look at the way I work with my clients. I would recommend that anyone working directly with clients with ABI avail of this training, I just wish I got it when I started, but I will certainly be recommending it to my colleagues. Once again, many thanks and good luck with your excellent work

Thank you for the fantastic and really inspiring course last Friday and Saturday, it will make such a difference to the way I work with my patients and has given me a better understanding of what is actually happening to them

As a result of this course I now feel that the area of cognition is less chaotic

I now know I can do something about cognitive problems

The importance of attention underpinning everything else has been well demonstrated to me

I have learned how important it is to not forget the impairment based work

I can see now how and why executive problems should be addressed at each stage of cognitive rehabilitation - including the earliest stages

The term 'Short Term Memory' has been shown to be confusing - when a patient tells me they have a problem with this I need to probe to find out what exactly they mean

I have learned about the importance of the development of metacognition and insight and therefore how essential it is to provide appropriate and accurate education to the patient

I found the information about the differences between male and female brains very useful

I now intend to model good cognitive skills myself, so that the patients see me doing this

I have learned not to overload the patient with strategies and with information generally, but to be much more selective in what I give to them

I will use the technique you taught us to develop better awareness skills - to ask the patient to predict and rate performance before I provide feedback on actual performance

I intend to ensure that every patient now receives a screen for visual problems

I have learned more about clinical reasoning and intend to use the why and what questions in future

As a result of this course I now feel that I can be more confident and direct in my communication with my patients

I have realised that I need to set aside the time to plan my patient interventions so that they 'hold together' better

I intend to set goals with every task that my patients do now. I have learned how essential it is to do this

I intend to ensure that all my goals are measurable

I have learned how important attention skills are. I will therefore spend much more time working on this essential cognitive skill

As a result of this course we will teach our rehabilitation assistants the information you have provided so that they can educate our patients consistently in every session

We will be teaching our colleagues how important it is to slow down when giving information to our patients

I have learned that many of the behavioural problems we see with our patients may be due to an underlying cognitive problem. This gives me a useful method of trying to overcome the problems

I intend to teach my colleagues about brain function in the way that you taught us on this course. It was very useful

I will initiate discussions in our team concerning the difference between being a client led service and a client centred service

I just wanted to say thank you to Kit and Anne for such an interesting and inspiring course, which was very well presented and will no doubt improve my practice when working with patients with brain injuries. I have recommended the course to my colleagues

I will now use the models you have presented for discussion in our team

I now intend to do more education with my patients and their relatives

I will now pay more attention to attention!

I will look to see if all my goals are really SMART enough

I feel that I can now do better and more precise testing using the models you have given us to guide me

I found it reassuring that I was doing many of the right things - this course has increased my confidence

I liked the clinical reasoning approach you presented

I have realised that I have not been dealing with cognitive problems properly. I now have a lot to think about to improve my practice

It is encouraging to realise that it is possible to improve cognitive skills even a long time post injury

Our team will now spend more time on the clinical reasoning you have shown us

We will now look at our rehabilitation environment to try to ensure that it is made as appropriate as possible to avoid overloading the patients cognitive skills

We really enjoyed your course and learned a lot. You are excellent to communicate the message!

This course has shown me that we need to educate our peers and share the information we have learned from you. We need to get the whole team doing this work

I have learned not to make assumptions that things have been done by other therapists, prior to me seeing the patient

I have realised that I need to do more education of the patient and the carer

I intend to build up a resource of SMART goals

I will ensure that all our goals are SMART in the future

I will organise time out to ensure our team can write, develop and implement the structures that will improve the cognitive input for our patients. We will use the frameworks you have taught us

I will work towards developing better awareness in my managers to help them understand how the cognitive problems impact upon function

We need to do more process training and involve the families in this too

From a Rehabilitation Assistants point of view I think it is important that we have this knowledge of the cognitive issues, as well as the therapists. The course has given me much greater understanding about why certain things are done with the patients

I have learned that behavioural responses can be stimulated by cognitive overload - the course has helped me understand this better and how to manage it. I have also learned that I need to ensure my role does not antagonise these behavioural problems further

I will change my expectation of some of my clients as a result of what I have learned on this course. I now understand their problems may be due to some of their cognitive issues rather than being emotionally driven

I will ensure we use a larger battery of tests for our assessments to be more accurate

I intend to use better clinical reasoning skills - and you have shown me how to do this. I am much clearer on what is meant by "clinical reasoning" now

As a physiotherapist this course has really helped me understand cognitive functions much better. I will be able to work with the Occupational Therapist in my team in a much more effective manner as a result of my learning

I would like to thank you both for the wonderful workshop this week. I learned that with the resources and mentoring provided by you and my own abilities and insights that I have been doing a lot that is right. That is reassuring and gratifying. I also learned that, sadly, I have done a lot wrong or less effectively than I might have. But I also know now what some of those areas are and how to improve. I have a far better sense of direction

I just returned home after absorbing Kit and Anne for two days, and I have to say, what a lot of sense they spout. Instructive but yet still personable. Wonderful. Anyways, I thought I would write and just say thank you to them for such a powerful adventure

We will now ensure the terminology we use to describe insight problems is better defined

We will use the scenarios you provided on this course to assess if the patient has problems - and will use less formalised language in our reports; we will replace this with more functional descriptions with clearer interpretations for the patient and family to understand

This course has taught us to revisit the 4 areas (education, process training, strategy training and functional activities training) even after the patient has plateaued

This course has shown me that I need to give people more time - less is more. I have realised that I am rushing through the interviews and treatments as I feel I have so much to cover; I now realise that I will get more information if I ask fewer questions and allow time for responses

We will improve the education process for our patients as a result of this course - with an emphasis on doing lots of repetition over a period of time to ensure the information is functionally useful for the patient and family members

We will work on improving the way in which we document and discuss our findings as a result of this course

We intend to restucture the stress group that we run for our patients now in the light of the learning from this course

I intend to use the information from this course to teach our referral sources what they can do prior to patients coming to our service

We are under a lot of pressure to move patients onto services, but I now realise I have focused too much on patient planning and need to return to working on patient rehabilitation. This is likely to mean insisting with my managers that we also need to get cognitive skills improved to a sufficient level to be functional at home; we have tended to focus only on the physical and social

I feel my clinical reasoning skills have been sharpened and I now intend to keep asking "why" and "what" and using the team to bounce ideas around

I will now provide better structure in our planning of the patients treatment plan

This course has shown me very clearly that there is a need to refocus on impairment based work and not just focus on functional activities

We intend to review our treatment activities to ensure that we have a large battery of tasks to use to develop the cognitive skills of our clients

We have tended to be a patient led service for goal setting and I can see that it has not worked particularly well. This course has made me realise why. I intend to formally change this procedure now to a client focused service

We now intend to share information with our clients as we are assessing so that we can establish and nurture a better relationship with them from day one. We have seen how important this will be to developing our service

We are a community based service and this course has taught us that we need to develop a better structured plan for what we will do in each home. We have also realised how important it is for us to model good cognitive skills for our client

We already run a morning orientation group and we will now improve the education we provide about the brain during this time. We will also improve the education we provide to family members

We will now improve our attention rehabilitation assessment and treatment process and particularly ensure that we have a more interdisciplinary approach to this

This course has shown me the importance of maintaining a structured, well-thought-out, rational plan to use in the home setting

We found the resources you showed us very useful and intend to obtain and use some of these

We have tended to just focus on everyday function, and we now intend to shift the focus to include the underlying reasons for these problems. The course has shown us how important our clinical reasoning skills are

This course showed us how important it is for us to develop better control of the patients environment with regard to minimising distractions

I thoroughly enjoyed the CRT training course, I learnt such a lot, and I also feel empowered to implement this into my practice. It provided me with a way to structure my thinking regarding cognitive impairment, to therefore provide a better service to patients and their families. Kit and Anne were wonderful speakers and in sharing their experiences made the learning opportunity all the greater. I particularly liked their use of stories and images to help cement our understanding and to share these with patients. I believe everyone who is working with those who present with a neurological condition should attend this course

This course has made me realise that I need to start working on developing awareness via simple education in my acute setting. I have a role in this, rather than just assessing and passing information onto the next stage in the patients pathway. The penny has dropped that I need to, and am able to, start this process off

As a result of this course I will use the model of visual processing you provided, to guide me in examining the underlying causes of the functional problems I have been trying to treat

This course has stimulated me to try to look at the underlying causes of the problems I see in my patients - to use better clinical reasoning

This course has given me the confidence to put my point of view across in multi disciplinary meetings

I now intend to spend more time planning and working with specific patient needs rather than being what feels like a discharge planner, and perhaps spending too little time treating the patients

I will do more education

I now have structures which allow me to set up my new clinical service for patients

As a result of this course I will do more process training; I can provide this as homework in my community based team setting

In a random sample survey from one course 100% of respondents stated that what they had learned from the workshop had changed the way they would practice

Thank you for a very interesting course. It has consolidated and increased my knowledge

I feel more up to date now and ready to use my knowledge in my workplace

Great information handout

Wonderful clear presentation by Kit and Anne

The course has helped me realise what I am already doing but made me realise that I need to formalise things more and provide more education to people

The course provided a rationale for treatment and an easy process to follow

Thoroughly enjoyable

Great learning opportunity

Great course

Very good - insightful

The course was really enjoyable. I have learned a lot and have a greater knowledge of cognitive rehabilitation now. As a new graduate this was a really great course for me, starting to enter the workforce. It was very interesting and really backed up my current processes of cognitive rehabilitation

The course was presented brilliantly - fun and easy to understand

The course covered areas that I had not given a lot of thought to

In a random sample survey from one course 100% of respondents stated that the workshop met their expectations, with the following things variously listed as the best aspect of the workshop: the presenters style, resources to take away, examples that were used to illustrate points, the practical models given, receiving practical information that can be applied in my day to day interventions with clients, too many to list!, simple explanations, logical flow of information and presentation of material, being led by two people who know their subject so well, entertaining and realistic presenters, structured learning, clear concise powerpoint presentation, the practical exercises to make things concrete, good pace and delivery

As a result of this course we will break the work we do down into hierarchies and make sure we use all 4 treatment approaches you have taught to us

This course has given us a vocabulary that we can use within our MDT to evidence where we are coming from; we can explain why we are working on things - demonstrating clinical reasoning

As a result of this course I will make sure our patients understand more about their injuries - not assuming that someone else has already done this education

I now intend to take time out for patient planning and review in order to improve our effectiveness by ensuring our structures are well organised in the way that you have shown me

I will now structure and organise my resources around the frameworks that you have given me

Your courses are inspirational. Thankyou!

I will now make sure that all my goals are SMART

I have always felt my approaches are good, but somewhat haphazard. Having the hierarchies you presented on this course will help me structure all the elements in my approaches that I already use

I now intend to work more closely with families. Particularly I intend to ensure that my report writing includes a version for them so that they can fully understand the issues

I will now look more at adjustment and acceptance issues rather than skirting around them

I will look at the underlying problems driving behavioural issues, so that I can affect change in them. This course has shown me how many of these behavioural problems may be due to relatively simple cognitive breakdowns

This course has made me realise that I need to allow more time for patient responses - in case they have a processing speed problem

Our team will go away and will try to look at prognosis more competently. As a result of the things you have taught us on the course we feel we can do this

Instead of just documenting patient problems I will now ask WHY a patient cannot do something. You have illustrated to me how I need to develop my clinical reasoning skills in this way

This course has made me realise how important awareness training is to our work with people following brain injury

I now intend to talk more slowly to my clients and give them more time to respond. I have not made sufficient allowance for their slowed information processing skills

I have learned how important it is to relate the functional problems back to the underlying impairments

I intend to put into practice what you have taught us about using functional tasks as treatment activities. I believe we are not doing this adequately in the rush to discharge patients

This course has taught me that I need to do a lot more education of my clients and relatives to help improve their awareness

This course has stimulated us to try to use the models you have given us and to relate our clinical reasoning to these. Also I realise that I need to give myself more time to reflect on my practice and think through my clinical reasoning more clearly

I found the differences between male and female brains that you described to be fascinating and very relevant to my work with the young males in my practice

This course has taught me that I need to have a more structured approach to the treatments that I provide

I now know that I am on the right track but I realise there is a heck of a lot more to be done

I realise that we need to examine the assessment process we are using and improve it

Following on from this course our team intends to look at our whole team language in order to ensure we provide consistency. Our planning and organisation will be structured around the frameworks and models you have given us. We will ensure new additional staff in our team are oriented to this whole approach to ensure consistency

This course has taught us that we need to be more aware of goal setting and that we need to use a more structured approach to dealing with cognitive problems

I intend to do more education with clients and families, as well as with other staff members, as a result of this course

You have shown us that we need to be more aware of visual impairments and our aim now is to get more help for patients with these visual problems

As a result of this course we will use a more structured approach and will look at impairments, which we have not really been doing. We will then work hiearchically using the models you have given to guide us. It is also apparent that our MDT needs to establish a common language so that we do not confuse our patients. We also now feel confident that we can do this work even with people who are a long time post injury

We will now make sure that we check that the client understands what we are saying more thoroughly. In addition we will use the prediction and self rating approach you taught us, to help the clients develop better awareness

We will now try to work alongside the patients instead of ahead of them

I intend to print out the models you gave to us and put them on the therapy room wall, so that staff and patients alike can gain better understanding and awareness of the cognitive issues

As a result of this course we will look at how we can incorporate process training into our current approaches. The course has really emphasised to me that we need to spend much more time looking at optimising the attention skills of our clients

We will now try to teach what you have taught us, to other staff members

I found the cognitive rehabilitation training wonderful and it has really helped to clarify and structure my thoughts and method of assessing and treating my patients! Thank you!!!!!!!!

Having attended your CRT for professionals course, I am now restructuring our unit and getting on with educating and implementing what you have taught. Your passions motivate and encourage others and from that - motivate us to carry it on. Thank you very much for a brilliant course

It is so obvious now that I think of it - I was not doing enough Process training. I can now see how easily I can apply this using the functional activities I am currently doing. I will find this very useful

As a result of this course I now intend to increase the amount of education I am giving to my patients and their relatives. I will also keep repeating this education in lots of different ways to ensure it is taken on board. I have realised that I need to persevere with this even if I have explained it 4 times already!

I will now educate our Consultant and the rest of the MDT on the cognitive problems our patients have, in order to ensure their discharge is appropriate. At present I do not think our service takes the cognitive needs into account sufficiently

I intend to use what I have learned as work for my students so that they can improve their own cognitive skills. I will also use this same framework with my patients who primarily have emotional difficulties rather than brain injury difficulties. I feel the executive section will be particularly appropriate for these purposes

I will now try out using the errorless learning approach and I intend to teach this to my colleagues

I will try to set up an assessement and treatment pack for each of the cognitive areas in order to improve our service

I intend to educate all the carers in my ABI group using the information I have gained from this course

I have learned how important it is to go back to the basics all the time in my assessments and treatments. The course has taught me how to do this with clear frameworks and models

As a result of the course I intend to ensure that the weekends for our patients are more structured so that the gains they are making can continue

I will apply the prediction process you taught us on every task that I now do with my patients, in order to help their awareness develop

Kit and Annes knowledge, passion and devotion is infectious. Although I purchased part one and two of "How to do Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy" and base my clinical practice on these books principles, actually coming to this course and hearing this presentation helped address any questions or misunderstandings I may have had. As an OT working within Neurorehabilitation I believe these courses are invaluable and have really given me an advantage in relation to my clinical practice and CPD. Thanks very much

I thoroughly enjoyed the 2 day course. Kit and Anne pitched the content of the course spot on. I found it interesting, thought provoking and cannot wait for my next Cognitive Rehab patient to be referred! Thank you

This course has given me a systematic approach to Cognitive Rehabilitation which I will be able to apply in my work

I have learned how important it is to not overload my client

As a result of this course I intend to review the paperwork on my unit, to ensure we use the headings you have given us - this will help us ensure a more structured approach to our assessment and treatment

Previous staff from my unit have been on this course and have set up paperwork as a result; I am now in a position where I have a better grasp of how to utilise this paperwork to benefit my patients

I now intend to educate the clients much more than we have been doing

As a nurse I will now try to ensure better structure when all of my staff are interacting with our patients. I can see how important it is to ensure a clear purpose to every visit we make in the patients home. I will also ensure all the staff continue the education approach in a consistent and continuous manner, with each of our patients. The course has confirmed how essential it is that we are all saying the same thing

This course has emphasised to me the importance of the whole team being trained/educated to ensure consistency and a team approach - particularly when trying to avoid overloading the patient. This includes all the support staff as well as the therapists

The hierarchical models you have presented to us have helped me to understand what I need to eliminate and what I need to start working on. I now feel much better equipped to be more organised in my assessment and treatment approaches

As a basic grade I have found the course has given me time to get my head around some of the cognitive issues that I have seen in my patients. I now particularly understand the importance of being structured in my work, and I have the tools to enable me to do this

As a result of this course I intend to ensure my patients are much more closely involved than they have been up to this time - for instance: telling them the results of their assessments as we finish tests, and setting SMART goals in collaboration with the patient

My confidence has been increased hugely, to provide honest feedback to help the clients learn about their problems and abilities. I was always a bit unsure about this, but this course has given me the tools and structure to feel safe in doing it. I can also see how essential this is in helping the clients progress

This course has made me much more comfortable about doing impairment based work with my clients, aswell as doing the functional based work. I now realise that the clients can be taught that the impairment based work is meaningful so long as I make the links with them into function. It is my job to do this! Things do not all have to be real life - so long as I show the client that it is meaningful. I like this!

I want to give some feedback to Kit and Anne for this fascinating course. The content of both the days was extremely interesting and set at a level that therapists could understand. It was especially helpful to be advised how to structure the rehabilitation and provide us with frameworks and models in which to do this. Both Anne and Kit are brilliant speakers and made the course friendly and amusing, thus maintaining my interest throughout. I would definitely be interested on attending another course run by them and will recommend it to others

I have realised from this course that I need to spend more time feeding the assessment results back to the patient. I have tended to go and talk to my colleagues but not the patient. I suspect from what I heard from other people on the course that this is pretty common

I will now allow the patient time to respond - I think I have not allowed enough time in the past

As a result of this course I now have the confidence to work with hypotheses; I used to feel that I should have all the answers, that my assessments should give me concrete answers on what was wrong with the patient. I now realise that I can work to test hypotheses and I feel much more comfortable with this approach

I will now try to do proper assessments on all my patients, with the aim of getting a good overview of their underlying problems - answering the question "why is this happening?" all the time. This will give me the direction I then need to work in. I used to make too many assumptions before the course

I really liked the analogies you used throughout the course. These will be very useful to me in my day to day work

I now intend to apply the visual model you have shown us - particularly going back to the basic level

As a doctor, my observation is that in our team at least it is likely to be the doctor who leads the MDT. This is often done without the specific specialised knowledge - in this case of cognitive issues. I therefore intend to change this so that I will act as more of a coordinator to allow other expert team members lead in their areas of expertise

As a result of this course we intend to ensure the acute and post acute aspects of our team are both using the same approaches, so that we can optimise the efficiency and effectiveness of our rehabilitation - this will be very beneficial for our patients

This course has shown me that I need to work much more on helping the patients and carers understand the issues they are facing

I will now go away and rething about how to document all of our plans for therapy, based on what I have learned on this course

I have realised how crucial it is to not overload the patient. I must admit that I have been guilty of doing this! I try to cram as much as I can into functional activities like shopping in the supermarket - because it seemed most efficient to do this. I can now see that this is not necessarily an appropriate thing to do. In future I will base the amount of functional input on the ability levels of the patient to cope with overload

Our team has recognised that we are overloading our patients by treating them in a totally "normal" way. What they are experiencing is out of the ordinary. In future we will provide information and input based on the level of ability of the patient to deal with the amount we are giving

We now intend to incorporate the structured approach to Cognitive Rehabilitation that you have given us, into what we do with our patients

The systematic approach to Cognitive Rehabilitation that this course gives us, will be invaluable to me in justifying the need for further intensive rehabilitation for my patients

We have always assumed in the community based setting in which I work, that the education has been done already by other people. We now know that this is not necessarily true, and even if it has been, that we need to continue with this. We intend to develop this aspect of our service

The Cognitive Rehabilitation workshop was fantastic and I feel that already it has impacted upon the way in which I practice!

I want to thank you for such an interesting and useful course. Since the course I have started to implement many of the principles covered. The workshop was exactly what I needed to help me understand cognition and give me a structure for therapy. Brilliant. Thank you

I want to thank you both for another brilliant course, I have learned loads and have taken away so many ideas that I cannot wait to go and try with my clients!

I really enjoyed the two day workshop. The delivery was excellent, and I am sure that all of us left with a much clearer understanding of CRT and how to go about it

I think reflecting on what we should have learned at the end of each section was a useful way of reinforcing the information taught.

The tasks that you got us to do in groups really got us thinking about how we could apply what we learned into practice - which was really useful.

Thank you for including such brilliant resources for improving cognitive skills, they will be referred to lots!

The course has given me the confidence to argue for better rehabilitation facilities for the patients with brain injury on my caseload. I also feel much more optimistic for the potential outcomes for this patient group

The best brain injury course I have ever been on

The course has given me the confidence and knowledge to be more systematic in my assessment and treatment of cognitive issues now

As a result of the course I now intend to provide a more continuous education throughout my contact with my patients, rather than just doing it once, and assuming it has been taken on board. I can really see the value of providing good quality education

The models and hierarchical framework presented on this course give me an excellent place to start providing good quality cognitive rehabilitation for my patients. I also intend to review our use of SMART goals to ensure we are using these properly

I intend to try to educate the people I work with on the team so that we can all understand how to best assess and treat the cognitive problems we are faced with by our client group

We will use lots of the ideas you have given us on this course, in our education group - which we intend to develop further as a result of what we have heard over these two days

I can now see how important it is to include impairment based work alongside our functional work. I will explore the use of impairment based work in our setting

I will use the idea of "hypothesis generation" to guide me in my therapy. This was a "eureka moment" when I heard about this; it has given me confidence to work with my patients to explore their cognitive problems alongside them, without the fear that I may not get it right first time

I intend to photocopy the diagrams of the cognitive models you have given us, and carry them around with me so I can refer to them when I am working with my clients, and use them to explain what I am doing

I have long intended to write a leaflet for families on language and cognition; this course has given me the confidence and knowledge to write the cognitive section of this leaflet

I now realise that I need to allow more time for my patients to respond before I jump in again with more questions!

I have recognised that the current system of meal choices that we use needs to be altered to better match the patients processing speed and capacity levels

I have learned that the quirky behaviours that we see in our clients is actually "normal behaviour in abnormal circumstances"

As a result of this course I will now work on developing more clearly defined goals with my patients

This course has taught me how to structure my working practice so that I can better explain it to the patient and justify it to other members of the multi disciplinary team

The course has helped me to organise and justify my clinical reasoning

I now have tools to analyse why patients cannot do a functional task easily and correctly

I will now put more effort into educating the patient and the carers. The course has made me realise that we do not do this well enough and that it is essential that we develop this area

I have recognised not to delve straight into the psychosocial areas, but instead will ensure a complete picture of all other factors first e.g. cognitive issues. In other words I will try to find the root cause of the emotional and behavioural issues presented by the patients, before starting my treatments

I will now ensure that my clients self rate themselves before and after every task. I now understand that this simple technique is a great way to help develop awareness

Our team will now work more on awareness with our patients. We will try to ensure our multi disciplinary team works in a more coordinated fashion on these cognitive and awareness issues

I find in my work that when faced with a client with brain injury all of their problems seem overwhelming to start with; it is all just so complex and there are so many issues to deal with. The course has helped me put everything I do into a more logical approach. The task seems clearer to me now

Although there are many people who do great work presently, a course like this can only encourage and enhance best practice through many disciplines for the future for all concerned. It is a great indictment that there are so many people who will have been left behind from such quality CRT rehabilitation when this becomes the "norm", which cannot be soon enough

This course has enabled me to see what the patient experiences after brain injury

I will now be able to use the models presented on this course to help our team structure our cognitive rehabilitation efforts

This course has reinforced the need for professionals to work together for the benefits of the patient, and to carefully assess what their problems are

I am now understanding how important it is for me to begin to work more with the family, especially when patients are not improving quickly

I will spend more time on education of the family and the patients

We need to ensure that we do more multi disciplinary team work - and to include the patient as part of our team (putting the patient into the centre of our team). We will try to work more as a team

In our team we neglect and forget about the cognitive functions as in our environment it is more important to be physically fit. But we need to rethink this and pay more attention to cognitive work

We need to set more clearly defined goals

I now understand cognitive functions much better

We will now put greater emphasis on MDT work. The whole team should set the goals together and work together to achieve them

I can now understand the behaviour changes in my patients much better

I have learned that we should not overload our patients, and we should give them time to process information. In addition we also need to check their attention skills are working well as these can contribute to problems

This course has given me a better structured knowledge of the cognitive problems shown by my patients. I will now ensure that distractions are minimised for these patients. I am also going to reexamine the influence of the environment on the progress of my patients

This course was a good chance to step inside the role of the patient and to understand the world from their point of view

You said it would change our practice and yes, it has definitely changed mine (for the better)

I have used many strategies you taught us

Thanks for a thought provoking and entertaining couple of days

I really enjoyed the 2 days and have found the course materials invaluable in my day to day practice

We are all able to utilise a lot of the knowledge gained within our own unit

A very enjoyable and informative workshop

One of if not the best taught courses I have ever been on

The course was excellent - and I got a great deal from it as a brain injury survivor and in my work with others

The course is jammed with a lot of very useful information

The manual is great and I have already used many of your suggested activities

I have noticed an immediate shift in the way I have approached my patients and the feedback I am able to give to the medical team

I feel so much more positive about what I can do with patients with impairments of cognition

Excellent presentation manner

Very interesting and stimulating

Your course has probably saved me considerable time, maybe even a couple of years of experience to have the confidence to apply your model whilst building up my own evidence

This course provided an in-depth understanding of how frustrating a client can find basic functioning

This course taught me an understanding of the difficulties that people with brain injury have to deal with in their everyday lives

Excellent presentation; vital information

The information presented has helped me realise areas in my treatment programme that I need to expand on, especially the functional aspect

Excellent presentation with emphasis on therapy

Excellent tasks listed for rehabilitation and at home exercises

Excellent interactive sessions, thought-provoking. Examples and analogies excellent

Very inspiring

Fantastic! You have really inspired me to implement several areas in my practice

An excellent course - you are both an inspiration to me

An extremely enjoyable and useful course

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