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Returning to Work or School
Imagine that we are all in the technological Dark Ages and no one has invented the wheelchair
yet! Now imagine you are recovering from a bad accident, have lost the use of your legs, and
you are trying to figure out how to get your old life back!
What would your new life look like? Probably pretty grim! Even if the
people around you were “supportive,” and they encouraged you to try to go back to work or
school, what would that experience feel like?
How would you get around the office or the construction site? How would you capture information
in the classroom? How would you relate to your co-workers, supervisors or classmates? What if
you really TRIED! Even tried very, very hard!
If it didn’t work, whose fault would it be? How would you feel afterward, particularly after
making a concerted effort? How would you family feel? Your friends? How would the workers in
all the agencies feel after spending money on job coaches, job development or “re-education”?
What conclusions would be drawn?
This scenario is relevant to those of us with brain injury because it reflects how many of us
with brain injury are treated. In many cases, we are either counseled to try to go back to
work (simplified version of our previous job, reduced schedule, etc.), or we may be counseled
to abandon work and school altogether.
Attempts might be made to provide some crude tools and skills training, and when that doesn’t
work, everyone (including you) might give up because the situation feels so hopeless. Some of
us end up in sheltered workshops and supervised work enclaves - not because this is the best
we can do, but because we do not have the tools and skills to work more independently.
We “crawl around on our cognitive bellies” because we have not been provided with appropriate
tools and skills.
It doesn't have to be this way. When we have appropriate tools and learn how to use them, those of us with brain
injury can learn to compensate for the new issues and problems brain injury presents to us. We can use our
new tools and skills to get our lives back! Like persons who use wheelchairs or hearing aids,
we just do things differently now.
However, when it comes to brain injury, it is far more commonplace to hear that “expectations
need to be realistic” or a person’s life needs to be “scaled back.” Why? Because we are in the
Dark Ages when it comes to appropriate rehabilitation strategies and tactics!
Twenty or thirty years from now, we will all look back on the 20th Century with horror at the
way persons with brain injury were treated! Particularly with the expectations placed on us to
return to work and school in the absence of receiving appropriate tools and skills training! Or
equally troubling, with the counseling we are encouraged to get to learn how to or “adjust of
our deficits.”
The BRAIN BOOK® itself is a specialized
assistive device. It has been called both “prosthetic memory” and a “cognitive wheelchair”
(many users call it their “paper brain”). The skills training the BRAIN BOOK®
System’s educational program provides, supports the use of the BRAIN BOOK®,
and helps persons with cognitive impairment master compensatory skills we all know they/we need
to live effectively again.
When a person with cognitive impairment is able to use their BRAIN BOOK®
successfully, the odds are increased for successfully returning to work and to school. Why?
Because the person knows how to capture, store, retrieve and use important information (by
knowing how to write, find, store and use effective Memory Notes). They know how to track and
organize communication with others. They know how to get and stay oriented. They know how to
manage and alter routines. They know how to break tasks into steps, and also how to retrieve
information they have recorded about these steps. They have strategies for managing
uncomfortable feelings.
In short, they have been provided with the tools and skills they need to get their lives back.
Is “adjustment counseling” relevant? Of course it is. But not in the spirit of scaling ones
life back because one’s brain isn’t working the same way it used to. It’s useful for helping a
person adjust to living a new way, and reaching as far as they can stretch, knowing that they
now need new tools and skills to “get there.” BIG DIFFERENCE!
BRAIN BOOK® System’s program has been
pilot-tested in a variety of work and school settings. A successful year-long pilot was
recently concluded by the State of Nebraska’s Vocational Rehabilitation Division, the results
of which are available to anyone who wishes to review them.
Reading with comprehension is also an important component of the school experience. It is also
a problem for many persons with new brain injuries. The BRAIN BOOK®
System’s program addresses both basic reading, and “higher level” reading
issues in its teaching program.
Please think about what we are asking students and workers to do, if they have not been given
the tools and skills they need to be successful. Then imagine how much better it would be if
persons with cognitive impairment could learn to compensate before they were asked to enter
either of these challenging situations.
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How This Applies to Returning to
Work or School
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