The Person's Unique Recovery and Rehabilitation Pathway

Rehabilitation enables a person to become as independent as they possibly can.

The goal is for the person to return to their previous abilities, activities and way of life as much as they possibly can. It means enabling the person to live with their remaining abilities and develop strategies to enable them to compensate and overcome new difficulties.

The process of rehabilitation experienced by each person is unique.

Just as a brain injury is unique, the type of rehabilitation program the person is engaged in is uniquely tailored to target individual needs. Rehabilitation addresses specific areas of physical difficulty, thinking or cognitive processing, perception, social skills and relationships. It also addresses broader areas of returning to work, getting about in the community, and adjusting to changes a person may experience following a brain injury.

Rehabilitation goals can build on each other, for example managing transport before getting a job.

Rehabilitation is ongoing.

It may also be episodic - as new situations and opportunities arise.

Rehabilitation is not something that is done to the person, rather with the person.

Rehabilitation is based on working with the person to achieve things that matter to them. Therefore, for it to be successful, the individual needs to participate actively in the rehabilitation process. The type of rehabilitation offered needs to be meaningful and relevant to the person. This means the person, their culture, pre-injury lifestyle, family and environment are critical to ensuring the success of rehabilitation.

The person's abilities will determine how the person is able to participate in the rehabilitation process.

Where recovery to the person's pre-injury life pathway is not possible rehabilitation involves choosing another meaningful but different pathway to a life worth living.