Bringing hope to Herefordshire victims of brain injury (From Hereford Times)

Bringing hope to Herefordshire victims of brain injury

7:00am Tuesday 29th January 2013 in News

LIZI Birrell is looking to what lies beyond the “best year of her life”.

The 29-year-old, from Hereford, spent 2012 successfully completing a brain injury rehabilitation programme following a car accident four years ago.

Lizi was one of eight brain injury survivors in the county to attend a graduation ceremony for the Return to Real Life (RRL) rehabilitation programme.

Before her car accident, Lizi had a full-time job and busy social life but the brain injury affected her memory and concentration and life had become a daily struggle.

With the support of the RRL, Lizi’s life has been transformed, from learning new strategies to improve her memory and concentration, and to manage her fatigue, to boosting her self-esteem and overall wellbeing.

“I’ve been given the skills to enable me to live with my brain injury but not let it stop me enjoying life to the full," she said.

"I now work part time which enables me to pursue other interests such as volunteering and completing a counselling course, things I would not have had the courage to do previously,” she said.

Dr Dave Quinn, specialist brain injury consultant neuropsychologist with WVT said: “Our RRL programme enables people in Herefordshire with a brain injury to have an active voice in designing their own rehabilitation support and recovery programme.”

For more on RRL, call 01432 363934.