Desk Research
The desk research comprised of 3 phases viz. research, understanding and conclusion.
Phase 1 - Research I researched the organisations involved in neurological rehabilitation. Some of the organisations like headway and MND Scotland are doing tremendous work in this sector. They have immense resources related to neurological diseases, which helped us gain insights about patients & carers and their action. It also provided information about the fundings a carer gets from the government to look after the patient. The insight from this exercise was that carers find it challenging to avail themselves of the funding services from the government. The information regarding the funding is not accessible to the public. I also went through many patient interviews and carer testimonies available on the respective organisation’s websites. These interviews were very beneficial to understand the journey of a patient right from the diagnosis to treatment. The interviews also highlighted how a rehab centre plays a vital role in the recovery of the patients. We also learnt about the delays in the system, which makes the patients more vulnerable.
We listed down all the possible questions we had in mind regarding the referral process, communication channels, the possibility of engaging with the patients for ethnographic research, how carers are involved in the process and how does a rehab centre looks like. We narrowed it down to five major questions: How is the communication between the doctors and the family? 1. How can we help rehab practitioners collaborate well? 2. How can we build trust and reduce delays in the system? 3. How to design a long term guide for patient recovery? 4. How to empower the patients to be in control of their rehabilitation?
From this activity, we also listed down the questions which we had related to the DGRC.
