The meeting of the Orange County Stroke Support Groups took place on Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 7:00 pm at the American Heart Association offices at 4600 Campus Drive, Irvine, CA 92617. Below are the meeting minutes. For future meeting information, please contact us.

 

Thanks to the American Heart Association for donating the use of their meeting room!

Meeting minutes:

• The OCSRN was pleased to have Dr. Eric Ikeda as our community speaker. Dr. Ikeda, Director of the Neuro-Optometry Clinic at Casa Colina Rehabilitation Hospital (Pomona), discussed the visual rehabilitation services he provides for individuals with stroke or brain injury. He also reviewed some of the key issues affecting vision and how those factors may interfere with ADL and other activities. Included in the talk were some examples of how the different rehab disciplines can work together to integrate treatment plans and how non-optometrists might screen for visual deficits. (Dr. Ikeda graciously offered to forward some examples of visual screening instruments to the OCSRN.) Other topics included the practice domains of OTs and other practitioners with respect to incorporating visual aids into their treatment plans and how to go about finding or referring patients to optometrists who have expertise in this area.

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• Our upcoming second annual symposium, "The OCSRN Stroke Rehabilitation Continuing Education Workshop," will take place Saturday, November 5, 2011, from 9 a.m. –12 noon at Chapman University in Irvine Lecture Hall. Speakers include: Dr. Candace Vickers (Speech Pathologist), who will speak about constraint-induced speech therapy; Dr. Ana Solodkin, who will speak about her research using the mirror neuron system in stroke recovery, and Dr. W. Scacchi, who will speak about video gaming and rehabilitation. Continuing Education units are available for nursing, OT, PT, and SLP. (Sorry-we are no longer taking RSVPs-the workshop is now full.)

• The group also discussed recent trends and changes in rehabilitation practices and payments for services (e.g., state funding cutbacks and their effects on Adult Day Health Programs, reduced stays for stroke rehabilitation, reductions in Medicare and other insurance payments). A lively discussion about how the OCSRN might partner with other groups, such as professional organizations like the APTA, AOTA, ASHA, and patient groups to advocate for better rehabilitation services. The consensus of the group was that multiple types of rehabilitation service providers (acute hospitals, acute rehab units, skilled nursing facilities, outpatient clinics, and home health agencies) and their patients have been negatively affected over the past year. We welcome the input and involvement of individuals who are involved in/knowledge of patient advocacy, professional organizations’ efforts in these matters, media relations, etc., to further explore available options for improving the current system.

• Attendees discussed the OCSRN website ( www.ocsrn.com ), and how it can better serve our needs. We still need to cross-reference the information about transportation on the Area Office on Aging’s website with the OCSRN Transportation Resource page.