11th September 2022
Two years ago, I assessed Kayden, a professional footballer who had sustained a significant head injury whilst playing. I spoke with his coaches who reported their difficulties supporting him to comply with the medical advice, associated training plan and the protocols governing his return to competitive football; like many young people, Kayden saw himself as omnipotent, More…
31st May 2022
Written By Ellie Sullivan, Assistant Psychologist In today’s busy world and the current, global ‘mental health pandemic’, there is critical need for effective interventions for people’s psychological well-being. In the UK specifically, a 7% increase has been observed between March 2020 – August 2021. Globally there has been a 27.6% increase in cases of major More…
18th March 2022
By Caitlin Thompson, Assistant Psychologist & Dr Richard Maddicks, Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist As detailed in the previous blogs, the mild TBI (mTBI) literature is characterised by a lack of clarity regarding definitions, varying injury classifications and confounds associated with co-morbid conditions. Empirical studies regarding the treatment of mild TBI have inevitably reflect these dubitable foundations. More…
3rd March 2022
by Ellie Sullivan, Assistant Psychologist Neurological conditions, including spinal cord injury (SCI) sufferers, confer a high level of care need, including chronic pain, affecting 60% of individuals with SCI (Modirian, 2010). Caregiver burden and distress is extremely common, associated with a deterioration in quality of life (QoL). Thus, it is paramount that caregivers’ psychological More…
17th December 2021
As detailed in the previous article ‘Mild TBI: What it is and Why it matters’, working with this client group continues to present significant clinical challenges. These include the non-specificity of patient complaints, the lack of objective measurement of their symptoms and absence of clarity regarding diagnosis. Correspondingly, appraising clinical studies has continued to be confounded by the heterogeneity of patient groups, More…
9th November 2021
Every year in the UK approximately 1.4 million people suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and 80% are diagnosed as mild in severity (NICE Guidelines, 2019). Mild TBI is a type of acquired brain injury in which the definitions and diagnostic characteristics have varied over time. There is a common and concise definition stated in More…
9th August 2021
Written by Flo Bishop As the 2020 Olympics has drawn to a close this blog will reflect on the role of psychology within the Olympic games. Mental health and the wellbeing of competitors has become a prominent issue in these Olympic games due to the media attention focused on Simone Biles and other athletes speaking More…
4th May 2021
In the second half of this piece, we will discuss some of the long-term consequences of dementia, as it begins to progress and impact on an individual’s functioning. We will also discuss the importance of developing and maintaining rapport in order to establish an effective relationship with someone who has dementia. For the first half More…
28th April 2021
Introduction: This piece has been formulated around three interviews which have taken place over the past few months. The interviews I have conducted include one with a clinical psychologist who specialises in dementia diagnoses, one with a care-home manager, and one with a family member of a care-home resident who is 5 years post-dementia diagnosis. More…
31st March 2021
Written by Olivia Fretwell “On Monday, I said I didn’t believe Meghan Markle in her Oprah interview. I’ve had time to reflect on this opinion, and I still don’t.” This is directly quoted from Piers Morgan’s Instagram, posted on the 10th March 2021; here, he is re-iterating and making it clear that he didn’t believe More…