UCL Centre for Neurorehabilitation Seminar: Dr Sally Davenport

This event will take place in person from 17:30-19:00 with no online attendance option.

Please join us after the event for refreshments and networking.

This presentation will explore how individuals post stroke experience and make sense of the stroke pathway from the sub-acute to chronic stages of recovery. It will examine why some aspects of rehabilitation are visible and embraced, while others are not – and how this selective perception influences their actions and inactions. People recovering from stroke are newcomers to a world they did not anticipate nor want. They see and interpret their surroundings and experiences through the lens of what they know – and, more crucially, what they do not yet understand – about stroke, recovery, and rehabilitation.

The talk is based on findings from an ethnography which explored learning and being a learner in a rehabilitation setting. The findings showed that recovery involved a complex process of new learning that was imposed by the sudden change to health status. The participants were not passive recipients of their treatment but instead tried, often on the basis of very limited knowledge and understanding, to make sense of what they were experiencing. They looked for alignment between the input they received (the teaching) and what they expected and wanted to be doing (their desired learning). Where and when this was present, the curriculum of rehabilitation made sense to them. This coherence or not between teaching and learning positively impacted rehabilitation engagement and emotional well-being.

Although this work was conducted within the context of stroke rehabilitation, its findings have relevance to people living with other neurological conditions. These individuals, too, often find themselves unexpectedly thrust into unfamiliar territory – becoming new learners in a situation they neither anticipated nor desired.

Sally Davenport is the Programme Lead for the MSc in Neurophysiotherapy at UCL. She has a wealth of experience as a senior clinician working in various fields of neurophysiotherapy. For many years, she has led neurophysiotherapy programmes, mentoring and teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate education levels. Her research involves exploring patient and carer learning and sense making within stroke rehabilitation.