Carer Involvement in Exercises for People With Acquired Brain Injury.

Carer Involvement in Exercise Programmes for Acute Neurosciences Patients With Acquired Brain Injury

Increasing the amount of exercises completed has been shown to help recovery for people after a brain injury. This study will explore if providing extra training of exercises prescribed to a patient and carer team, will allow more practice of these exercises, better abilities to move and balance, and to assess if carer confidence changes with doing this. It is a repeated case design in the in-patient acute Neurosciences setting at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust (NNUH).

Inclusion

• Adults with acquired brain injury on NNUH Neurosciences Unit with a carer physically able to complete exercises with the patient.
• Patient to be able to follow simple commands (1 stage) for exercise intervention.
• Patient able to consent along with their relative together to participation in the study.

Exclusion:

• Discharge plan for ESD from initial assessment with no care package required due to too short timeframe of being an acute in-patient.
• Patient's with severe cognitive - communication deficits meaning they cannot follow 1 stage command for exercises or consent to the study.
• Severe pain, joint abnormality or spasticity limiting participation in exercise programme.
• Carer/relative not able to physically help the patient with the required exercises or carer/relative not able to consent to the study.