How can we meet your needs as a young stroke survivor?

This survey has been "live" for several months.  So far, most of our respondents are women!  We want to hear from more men so our results are balanced.

We know that young people have unique needs after stroke, but we don’t know how best to address these needs.  This questionnaire has been designed to collect information from young (aged 18-55) stroke survivors about their needs and how they would like their needs to be met. 

The questionnaire has three sections:

  1. Describe yourself
  2. Identify your stroke-related needs
  3. Tell us how you want your needs to be met

The information provided in the questionnaire will help to guide the development of healthcare systems for young people with stroke.

For more information, cut and paste this link into your browser: bit.ly/2HZSTmZ

If you're interested, here is a video of me talking about the study: bit.ly/2APjIZ2

Thank you for your help!

The girls are better at chatting, so perhaps better at writing. 

There is in my opinion just one xtra requirement for SS under 55 and thats longer term finance.  Given that the younger survivors are often stronger and thus recover more quickly, I find that concentrating on the younger age group is unkind.

How do you know that younger people have unique needs after stroke ?

What extra needs are met for us over 65s ? I would love to enjoy them.

Nevertheless I wish you well as any furtherence of stroke info is a good thing.

And please remember that todays youngsters are tomorrows elderly.

Colin

Couldn't have expressed it any better - absolutely spot on!  

Thank you Colin for the response! Women tend to "self-select" for psychological research, so I think you may be onto something there. We don't mean for the focus on younger survivors to come off as unkind.  In 2013, an Australian survey of ~1000 survivors and carers found that younger people were more likely to have unmet needs than older people.  One-on-one interviews conducted at our research centre in Melbourne last year showed several themes that appeared to be especially salient for young survivors--for example, raising children, difficulties with budding intimate relationships, and the pressures of returning to work as the principle breadwinner of the family.  The goal of this research is to help design a stroke service, much of it online, that can make steps toward addressing such needs.  Anyone who feels they can benefit from the service, regardless of their age, will be welcome to use it.

Dear JK

Thank you for taking the time to reply. 

My understanding  is that the elderly are given greater consideration in Australia (Well Melbourne and Brisbane) than they are in the UK. 

I  had assumed your research was UK based and I am clearly incorrect.

I can understand your research for Australia whereas I think it does not apply in the UK. 

In the UK we are going through a period of blaming the elderly and of placing children on a pedestal. This is partly facilitated by the electronic age. I hope Australia can avoid making that error and learn from our shortcomings.

Best wishes

Colin

Hi Colin, that may well be the case--we will have a better picture of the post-stroke situation in the UK versus Australia once the results are in!  Thank you for writing to me.  As an early-career researcher, I learn a lot from interacting with "consumers".

I had a stroke when I was 11 years old and I am now 40 years old and I would be interested in answering your questions, if you would like to you can contact me at adamsr368@aol.com, my name is Rachel.

I feel like at 48 years of age I’m young but do I now need to be burdened by it? It feels like legs are my worry cos they struggle I had at least two I know of but I’m told at least 3 are my history after mri showed them?

I sent you an email!  Also, if you're interested, the survey link is: 

bit.ly/2HZSTmZ

Hi there,

That sounds confusing! I hope you can get a better explanation of the MRI findings.  If you feel that you want to share your experiences, please consider filling out our survey at this link:

bit.ly/2HZSTmZ