Having survived against the odds, Lisa Beaumont has used her experience to help shape Neuro ProActive, a new app-based rehabilitation platform. Here, in the first of a series of blogs, she shares the background to her involvement
Between zero and 60 per cent of people who have an aneurysm do not survive long enough to reach hospital alive.
I survived mine in January 2011.
I know that I survived against the odds.
April is a month when nature reminds us of new beginnings.
I am thrilled that this month, I have been given the opportunity to introduce myself in the first of my monthly blogs on behalf of Neuro ProActive, a new self-management platform for patients, families and therapists.
Each month I will share some insight from my lived experience of a decade of neuro-rehabilitation.
My journey has felt like a new beginning. I continue to relearn skills I once had: walking, social interaction, reading, clapping, dressing, to name a few.
I am a marketing professional and mother of two daughters, 17 and 19.
Our lives were rocked by my sudden departure from our family home. I was treated as an in-patient in a range of NHS settings for over a year, between 2011 and 2012, until I was permitted to return home with a care package in place.
At one point, my husband had been warned that, if I were to survive in a persistent vegetive state, that would be considered as a good outcome.
Knowing that you are lucky to be alive is an extremely powerful force that I have channelled into my programme of daily rehabilitation for ten years. I have been fortunate that with the support of my family, friends AHPs and live-in carers I have been able to make progress and maintain my motivation to improve.
I wish that I could have had the opportunity to record my journey and take charge of it with a platform like Neuro ProActive, which will launch at UCLH on April 12.
I have been privileged to contribute my feedback to help shape the design of Neuro ProActive over the last two or three years.
I hope that my input will ensure that Neuro ProActive is best placed to improve patient outcomes.
We share a drive to improve the experience post-stroke for other survivors.
After I was introduced to Different Strokes, I founded a local peer support group in West Kent – westkent@differentstrokes.co.uk. With them I have just completed their March On walking challenge.
I have recorded some of the milestones in the Journal section of my Neuro ProActive profile. It will give me the opportunity to share videos of me walking with my physiotherapist, Jane Cast (neurorehabkent.com) with ease!
More information on Neuro ProActive can be found on the YouTube channel here. Please subscribe for further updates over the coming weeks!
