Jo Blatherwick, Spinal Cord Injury Team Lead at Hobbs Rehabilitation, shares some of the resources she’s keen to share with our community:
Podcast for individuals requiring Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation
Bladder, Bowels, and Sex: Learning to Live After My Mountain Accident podcast
A spinal cord injury can have a significant impact on an individual’s bladder, bowels and sexual function. It is often a taboo subject that many people do not like to discuss, even pre-injury.
BBC Radio 4’s – Inside Health podcast: Bladder, Bowels, and Sex: Learning to live after My Mountain Accident opens up the subject, encouraging conversation around a topic which many individuals following injury report as being at the top of the list of things they want to change.
Campaign to improve care in hospitals for individuals living with a Spinal Cord Injury
This is serious SH*T
Many individuals with a spinal cord injury who require an emergency or elective admission to the hospital, are not offered appropriate bowel care or are refused access to their own personal assistant to assist them with bowel care. Lack of bowel care/management is not only degrading to the patient but can be life-threatening. More needs to be done to prevent individuals with a spinal cord injury from receiving inadequate bowel care when they are admitted to a hospital in an emergency or for routine treatment.
Spinal Injuries Association (SIA) are currently running a petition “This is serious SH*T”, to ask the Government to insist that every NHS hospital Trust has a policy, appropriate care settings and adequately trained staff in place to support neurogenic bowel conditions.
For more information or to sign the petition yourself check out SIA’s Petition to require bowel care policies and specialist bowel care at all NHS hospitals.
Free mental health support for individuals that require Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation
Psychological and emotional health: everyone’s business
Recent surveys from SIA have demonstrated that mental health issues in people who have acquired spinal cord injury are of great concern to people with spinal cord injuries and healthcare professionals alike.
SIA has recently announced, by working in partnership with NHS England South East Region, that they can provide free virtual mental health training from January to April over Zoom and be facilitated by Richard Matthews, their SCI mental health training and educational specialist. For more information check out The Spinal Injuries Association’s Psychological and Emotional Health: Everyone’s Business.
Inspiring true story of an individual who sustained a Spinal Cord Injury
The Little Big Things
Based on the fictional novel, The Little Big Things, by Henry Fraser, about how his life drastically changed in 2009 when he sustained a cervical spinal cord injury after diving into the sea and hitting his head on a sand bank. The Little Big Thing is a British Musical starring Ed Larkin, the first actor who is a full-time wheelchair user to lead the cast of a West End show. You can watch The Inspiring Henry Fraser and Ed Larkin on the Little Big Things on This Morning on YouTube.
Catch The Little Big Things in London’s West End at Soho Palace – playing until 2nd March 2024.
Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation at Hobbs Rehabilitation
Hobbs Rehabilitation’s Spinal Cord Injury Service is headed up by Jo Blatherwick, Specialist Neurological Physiotherapist and Spinal Cord Injury Team Lead. The multidisciplinary service provides continuous rehabilitation for those living with a Spinal Cord Cord Injury across the South of England as an inpatient, outpatient and within the community.
If you would like to enquire about our Spinal Cord Injury Service or have any questions please Contact Us via our online form.