Stroke care around the world
Leaders across the world gather at McMaster University to explore trends in stroke care.
On October 13, the School of Nursing (SON), the School of Rehabilitation Sciences and the Population Health Research Institute welcomed members of the Organized Stroke Care Across Income Levels (OSCAIL) research group to learn and hear from healthcare professionals from around the world on stroke care.
The OSCAIL group has grown from a concept proposed by Professor Peter Langhorne (pictured above) and others, of providing elements or organized stroke care in low resources settings to improve outcomes after stroke.
The in-person event took place at the Population Health Research Institute in the morning and the Farncombe Atrium, located in the Health Sciences Centre at McMaster Children’s Hospital, in the afternoon. It featured speakers from Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Malawi, Rwanda, and Canada. Among these speakers were nurses, physicians, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists. OSCAIL members were in Canada to attend the World Stroke Congress in Toronto.
Sandra Carroll, Vice Dean in Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) and Executive Director of SON, and Jackie Bosch, Assistant Dean of the Occupational Therapy Program and Professor in the School of Rehabilitation Science, FHS, facilitated the discussion throughout the day. “We left this to be a little bit organic… we are all so thrilled to come together because we have been meeting on zoom calls for a long time” says Carroll in her opening message.
The afternoon event ran from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. and covered a wide array of topics in relation to stroke care. The format consisted of two speakers with similar backgrounds discussing their roles in stroke care and some solutions they have implemented in their specializations for about five minutes each. Once both had completed their presentations, a question period followed.
The first two speakers included Rita Melifonwu, founder and CEO of STROKE ACTION UK & Nigeria, and Stefan Pagliuso, the Regional Stroke Program Director at the Central South Regional Stroke Network in Canada. The two discussed the generalized topic of stroke care across the continuum and how it relates to their professions.
The second pair of speakers was Emmie Malewezi, a Senior Lecturer at Edge Hill University in the UK and co-founder of Stroke Support Organization in Malawi, and Rhonda McNicoll-Whiteman, a clinical nurse specialist in the Regional Stroke Program at the Hamilton General Hospital (HGH). Both focused on the topic of nursing and stroke care.
Gerard Urimubenshi, the Head of Department and Senior Lecturer in Department of Physiotherapy, School of Health Sciences, College of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Rwanda addressed the group to discuss physiotherapy and stroke rehabilitation in Rwanda. Vince DePaul, Assistant Professor in the School of Rehabilitation Therapy at Queens University also spoke alongside Urimubenshi on his experiences in physiotherapy and stroke care.
Assistant Dean and Professor in the Speech-Language Pathology Program at the School of Rehabilitation Science in McMaster, Lyn Turkstra, discussed the topic of speech language pathology and the importance of it in stroke care. “In the United States and in Canada what has happened is we frontloaded all of the money for rehabilitation to the first few weeks after the stroke. It felt like we need to get people to get up and walk and move around early, and often they don’t have space or ability to think about feeding and talking until later” says Turkstra. She discussed that the importance to swallow, eat, speak, should be focused on just as heavily as the physical aspects of rehabilitation after a stroke.
Jocelyn Harris, Associate Professor in the School of Rehabilitation Science provided the occupational therapists’ perspective of stroke care in the Canadian context.
After about an hour and a half of presentations and discussions, there was a break to enjoy provided snacks and refreshments, as well as for the group to mingle.
Once the break ended, Malewezi presented again with Assistant Clinical Professor in the Rehabilitation Science program at McMaster, Michael Chan. They focused on the topic of rehab support personnel in relation the stroke care.
The last topic to cover was the role of stroke survivors in research. International Development Manager at the World Stroke Organization (WSO) and Stroke Association in the UK, Sarah Belson, discussed this topic. She explained that there is a panel within the WSO where those who were affected by a stroke in some way could contribute to stroke research and partner with clinicians. The WSO values the insights of those who have experienced a stroke as it provides perspectives that the clinicians may not have known of. “It was hard work, it was tricky and sometimes uncomfortable as we held a position of negotiating the space for all clinicians who were experts by training and people affected by stroke who were experts by lived experience” says Belson.
The event concluded with a presentation from Associate Vice President, Global Health at McMaster, Sonia Anand. She finalized the event with more information on the Global Health program, how it teaches their current students, and the connection that can be made between using global health methods locally. “Many of the theoretical principles a student will learn at global health could be applied in our local environment” says Anand.
The event provided the opportunity for leaders around the world to gather, collaborate, and learn through sharing their experiences and insights within their specializations in relation to stroke care.
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