Category: Vanessa Place

Week four/five: the end

It’s hard to believe that my time at St. Anne’s is over – four weeks has flown by! Over the past week (alongside my usual screening programme) I’ve been involved in several events with St. Anne’s, such as helping to run their service user drop-in session yesterday. It was a chance for people to make suggestions or raise concerns about the services on offer at St. Anne’s, as well as to sample the Krispy Kreme doughnuts on offer! I really enjoyed getting involved with the service users and hearing their opinions on the services they use everyday, and it really highlighted to me how important St. Anne’s is to some of these people. During my project I’ve seen the same faces passing through, whether it’s to get help with benefits, take a class in computer skills or even just to take a shower. I’ve been amazed by the sheer range of services and help available to anyone, all under one roof – and I feel really honoured to have been a (albeit small) part of it.

Anyway, back to my project. I’ve been analysing the data I’ve collected and have prepared a report for the staff at St. Anne’s about ARBD. It consists of the data analysis itself, an information leaflet about ARBD and some advice on the next steps to tackle this little-known condition. I really hope that with the data I’ve collected, St. Anne’s can begin to raise awareness of ARBD amongst their staff and their service users, eventually spreading this knowledge to other relevant organisations. ARBD is a serious condition that makes everyday life extremely difficult for those affected, and these people need to be noticed by clinicians and charity workers, and given appropriate help. My project will hopefully be the first step along this path.

To conclude, I’ve learnt a huge amount during my time at St. Anne’s, from data analysis and report writing skills to dealing with difficult people on a daily basis. It’s been immensely rewarding, challenging and above all fun! Although this is officially the end of my internship with St. Anne’s, I’m hoping to volunteer with them again in the future. They are truly an amazing organisation, and deserve all the help they can get.

The end of week three at St. Anne’s

Week three is just about over and it’s probably been my favourite (and the most interesting) week so far. I’ve spent a lot of time designing a leaflet about ARBD for staff I discussed in my last blog post, and a large part of that has been to do my own research on the condition. This involved literature searches and lots of journal articles! The whole point of my project with St. Anne’s was to help raise awareness of the severity and prevalence of ARBD in vulnerable groups, and the lack of resources on this subject really highlighted the need for greater awareness of the condition.

Besides researching ARBD, I’ve also been hard at work screening clients for signs of the condition. By now I’ve got pretty good at the process (I can even perform the screen without the instructions!) and know how to make clients feel comfortable and relaxed. What I’ve really noticed during my time at St. Anne’s is the honesty of the clients – they are very open about any worries they may have about their memory and their alcohol/drug use. It’s something I’ve come to really admire, and it should make my data much more reliable.

So with just one more week to go, I’m getting ready to analyse the data I’ve collected and give the staff at St. Anne’s my resources on ARBD. I’m already sad to leave and my project is not even finished yet!

Hard at work researching!
Hard at work researching!

Week two draws to a close…

My second week at St. Anne’s is nearly over, and I feel like I’ve settled in nicely. As I’ve carried out more and more screening I’ve become much more confident with the process, and when explaining the results to service users. The staff have been working really hard to raise awareness of my screening amongst service users and as a result I’ve been pretty busy!

Throughout my time at St. Anne’s, my perception of the homeless and people with alcohol/substance abuse problems has changed dramatically. It’s often difficult to admit that we have prejudices towards these groups, but I’ll put my hands up and say that before I began my project I had always been a bit frightened or suspicious of them. Over the past two weeks, I’ve had the chance to talk to many people I’d never normally interact with, such as the homeless, recovering alcoholics, and people who are alcohol and drug-dependent. Hearing their stories (through the screening process) has helped me  to understand how circumstance often lands people in positions they never expected to be in, and has really shown me that there’s no need to be skeptical or scared of these people – they are, after all, just people. I’ve never had so many interesting conversations, or laughed so much!

Despite all the fun, I’ve faced some new challenges this week. Many of the people who’ve asked to be screened for cognitive impairment this week speak English as a second language, which makes the scoring of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment complicated. Some parts of the assessment are designed to test verbal fluency and abstraction, so for people for whom English is a second language this can be more difficult. Frustratingly, there is no guidance on how to adjust the scoring of the assessment  in this situation available, so I’ve had to adapt the process how I see fit to ensure I get accurate data.

I’ve also spent some time talking to the staff at St. Anne’s about ARBD (Alcohol Related Brain Damage) and interestingly they knew very little about the condition. From my (admittedly still small) data set it’s clear that ARBD is a problem amongst the service users, so the staff were concerned that they weren’t well-informed on the subject. Using this, I’ve started designing a leaflet for the staff at St. Anne’s to inform them about ARBD, its symptoms and what to do if they suspect a service user may be suffering from the condition. This lot should keep me busy until my next blog post!

 

Week one draws to a close

My first week at St. Anne’s is (prematurely, for this week anyway!) over, and already I feel like I’ve learnt a huge amount.

Arriving at the breakfast club on Tuesday morning, in all honesty I was terrified. I was convinced no one would want to be screened for cognitive impairment while they were having their breakfast! But as soon as I arrived the staff made me feel very welcome, and went out of their way to make sure I felt comfortable. It was important to ensure that the service users felt at ease with me, so for a while I just helped out serving tea and toast, chatting to the people who came in. Through this (and the posters I’d designed earlier in the week) I managed to talk about my project with some of the services users, who agreed to be screened. The results of the screening are confidential and so can’t be discussed here, but I will say that they were fascinating. Some of the service users screened even agreed to be screened again at different times, to see how their result changed.

After Tuesday’s unexpectedly productive start, I felt really positive about the results of my project. But, as is usually the way, later on in the week the nature of my project again posed more challenges for me. We’ve been blessed with some beautiful weather over the past few days (even up North) which means that most of the homeless men at Holdforth Court (the hostel where I am carrying out the majority of my screening) were out enjoying the sunshine like the rest of the world. Today, for example, I didn’t manage to screen anyone at all! It is frustrating, but I chose this project because I enjoy a challenge. If the heatwave continues I’ll have to come up with new ways to attract attention to my screening programme. Despite a few setbacks, I’ve definitely learnt a lot this week. I feel much more confident interacting with the service users, and ready for whatever next week throws at me!

For now, though, I’m finishing a little early this week to head down to Brighton to take part in the Trailwalker: The Challenge 2014 for Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust this weekend. Wish me luck!!

Day one at St. Anne’s Community Services

Week One

My project

Since it’s my first blog post I’ll just give a brief overview of my internship project. Over the next four-six weeks I’ll be working with St. Anne’s, a charity based in Leeds that provides a range of services to vulnerable groups in society, from the homeless to people with learning disabilities. My project involves working with St. Anne’s to screen groups of people for cognitive impairment, linked to ARBD – Alcohol Related Brain Damage.

 

ARBD is an umbrella term for various symptoms associated with physical damage to the brain, caused by both the toxic effects of alcohol and vitamin deficiencies that accompany its long-term use. At present, very little is known about the prevalence and severity of this condition in vulnerable groups, such as those with a history of alcohol and substance abuse. The aim of my project is to identify possible cases of cognitive impairment through screening volunteers at a homeless hostel for men, and a breakfast club for homeless men and women, and use this data to examine the incidence of ARBD among these groups. My project is a kind of pilot study, to see if there is a need for more widespread screening for ARBD, or a service in Leeds (and, potentially, around the UK) to help these people.

Day one!

My first day started with a meeting at Holdforth Court – a homeless hostel for men run by St. Anne’s – with some members of the St. Anne’s team. It’s hard for me to put myself in the shoes of some of the people I will be screening; most of them are homeless and many are alcohol-dependent, so it was important to discuss how I was going to approach the topic of screening with these people.

The screening tool I’ll be using (the Montreal Cognitive Assessment) consists of some questions to assess various cognitive domains (excuse the jargon!). Often, people with a history of long-term substance abuse do have impaired cognitive function and problems with their memory, so you can imagine that it’s a sensitive subject. Myself and the St. Anne’s team spent some time deciding how I’ll approach the subject with their service users (more jargon!), and we agreed that over the next week I’ll spend some time at Holdforth Court and a breakfast club run for homeless people just socializing with the service users. It’s important that they feel comfortable enough with me to allow me to perform the screen, so I’ll be spending some time just getting to know them.

At the moment I’m feeling pretty excited about the project, although I am nervous about doing something so different from usual life at Imperial! It’ll be nice to actually get out there and interact with the service users on a personal level, and to hopefully be able to help any that do show signs of cognitive impairment.

My internship took another surprising turn when we were trying to come up with ways to encourage people to attend the screening sessions, and it looks like I’m going to be putting my baking skills to the test! I’m going to (attempt) to whip up some cakes to entice people to be screened, although the staff at St. Anne’s of course have to sample them first! I never expected my internship to involved my culinary skills, but that’s what I think I’m going to enjoy so much about this project – it’s constantly adapting and presenting me with new challenges.

For the rest of the day I’ve been designing some posters to put up around Holdforth Court explaining what I’m doing and why, hopefully to encourage people to volunteer to be screened. I’ll keep you updated on how it all goes!

The first section of the MoCA, showing some of the questions asked.
The first section of the MoCA, showing some of the questions asked.