P-2-02-04
CAREGIVER UTILISATION OF PHYSICAL HEALTH, MENTAL HEALTH AND RESPITE SERVICES FOR NEEDS OF PEOPLE WITH TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURIES.
G. Trmnan & C. Stevenson (Rehabilitation Studies Unit, The University of Sydney & Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney, Sydney, Australia)
Purpose: This study investigated service utilisation and stress in 87 caregivers supporting people with traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Method: A semi-structured interview was used to ascertain service utilisation, and the General Health Questionnaire was also administered to ascertain stress.
Results: Most caregivers (62%) used physical health services; fewer used mental health services (22%) and respite (14%). Only about half the stressed caregivers with used mental health and/or respite services. Users of mental health and/or respite services had higher anxiety and depression and spent more time per week supporting the person with TBI. The main reasons for not using mental health and/or respite services was that they were not needed or wanted.
Conclusion: Caregivers do not utilise mental health and/or respite services as readily as expected. Those that do access these services are extremely distressed. Reasons for non-use indicate that these services may not be effective or are not promoted adequately.
P-2-03-01
TRAINING PROGRAM FOR ORAL ~ING OF KANA USING INFORMATION PROCESSING OF KANJI SYSTEM
Tomoyuki Kojima, Masahiro Kato (Edogawa Hospital, Tokyo, Japan)
Abstract: In Japan "the key word method" is often used to help improve the kana (phonemic letter) processing ability of aphasic patients who have difficulty in processing kana but a comparatively well preserved ability to process kanji (ideographic). In this study we administered a training program for oral reading of kana using the key word method to a patient with chronic aphasia who manifested a severe disturbance in oral reading of kana in spite of only a comparatively mild disturbance in oral reading of kanji. The patient was a 31-year-old right-handed female. After a stroke of SAH she was diagnosed mixed-type aphasia. Five month of the onset she was referred to our hospital and started speech therapy. After 6 months of speech therapy she showed good recovery of aphasia, although her disturbance in oral reading of kana had not changed. Thus we started her m a training program by the key word method for kana reading in which she was required to form a paired association between individual kana and kanji having the same sound in the first syllable as the coupled kana (e.g.あ/a/-雨/ame/), which she could easily understand the meaning of and read aloud. After me month of this training, the severity of her disturbance in oral reading of kana had decreased remarkably. Our findings suggest that the access route to the phonemic information which the kana represent was facilitated by way of information processing of the kanji system which includes not only phonemic information but also semantic information.
