The World Stroke Organisation is committed to develop more Stroke Support Organizations (SSOs) and stroke support activities around the world. Supportive activity can include information and advice, peer support, family counselling, rehabilitation therapy or welfare services. We want to promote this invaluable activity as much as we can. If you would like to share your stories of stroke support please contact Sarah.Belson@stroke.org.uk
Janet E. Marshman RN, Stroke Coordinator, Virginia USA
What has inspired you to be involved in stroke support/stroke awareness?
Nursing, is
a profession of diversity. You may not think about it in this way, but it
provides many adventures in healthcare. That is how I got involved with stroke
support. I initially was hired as a nurse to do data abstraction for stroke
measures, and two weeks after I was in this role, my hospital asked me to lead
the project of primary stroke certification. Part of these responsibilities
included community stroke awareness and education.
How did
the project come about?
I have
always had an interest in integration of arts with healing. I asked myself,
“How can I create a profound community experience integrating art, stroke
survivors and their care partner?” Being that I am an artist myself, I had
connections with artists. What if I had artists have a conversation with stroke
survivors and their care partners about what it is like to live with a stroke
and then the artist would create an art piece from that conversation? So I
invited artists and stroke survivors to be part of the project, curating two
shows with artworks completed by the artist’s interpreting living
with stroke.
What does
stroke support look like in your country?
The American
Stroke Association and the National Stroke Association are the foundation for
professionals and those who have experienced stroke. Comprehensive Stroke
Centers and Primary Stroke Centers are key to the stroke care provided in the
United States. This project was recognized by the American Stroke Association.
What have
been the highs so far for your project?
As part of
this project I wanted to engage individuals that had lived with stroke a long
time and recent strokes. One caregiver shared, “I have been waiting 40 years to
tell my story.” At the end of the project when she was picking up the art piece
that the artist had given her, she said, “You have no idea how much healing has
taken place for me and my family as a result of this project.”
What have
been some of the outcomes of the projects?
Because this
was a different way to create stroke awareness, it provided a new platform to
educate the community about stroke. Healing for our stroke community was center
stage. It was a format of stroke education and visual experience having a long
term impact in the community.
What has
been the feedback from stroke survivors to the project?
The quote
above says it all.
What has
been the response from others – community, doctors, politicians?
The
community embraced this project. I worked with two art galleries in the
community to create the shows of 25 artists, which included water color,
acrylic paintings, ceramic pieces, mixed media pieces, photography, poet,
writer, paper art/Scherenschnitte and
charcoal drawing. Some of the works were created by artists who were stroke
survivors and who wanted to create an art piece for the show. The stroke
survivors and care partners found new friends in the artists, and the artists
loved doing something they had never done before. It was a new and novel
approach to creating art.
