Remarks by President McAleese at the launch of Brain Awareness Week for Headway
Remarks by President McAleese at the launch of Brain Awareness Week for Headway-The National Assn for Acquired Brain Injury
Is mór an onóir agus an pléisiúir dom bheith anseo libh innu. Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh as an chuireadh agus as fáílte fíorchaoin.
As Patron of Headway, I am delighted to launch Brain Awareness Week. My sincere thanks go to Clodagh O’Brien for her kind invitation to me to be here this evening.
Ten thousand people, each year, are admitted to hospital with a head injury and a similar number suffering from a stroke. These are very sobering statistics for the numbers mean that even as we meet here right now, before the day is out some fifty men, women or children’s lives will have changed course dramatically during the past twenty-four hours. They are about to enter a world you know well but which most are unprepared for. They and their families are about to become very grateful that twenty-one years ago a group of people got together to establish Headway as a support group for persons who have suffered traumatic brain injury and their carers.
This year sees Headway’s coming-of-age, an exemplar of the voluntary spirit at its best, a provider of increasingly sophisticated and complex services and outreach to those whose lives have been affected by acquired brain injury. From information and counselling to Day Services, Therapy and Family Support, Community Access, Outreach Services, a Website, a National Telephone Helpline and Rehabilitative Training Programmes – you will be there tomorrow morning for another group of bewildered and frightened people who did not expect to need you but whose anxieties will be considerably easier to bear because of your presence, your professionalism, your knowledge, skill and wisdom. I congratulate “Headway” on the vital services and support both for the sufferers and for their families which you provide.
Brain injury can be acquired at any time and from many causes. An accident, assault, a brain haemorrhage or viral infection can strike any time with devastating consequences for our bodies or our minds. Physical incapacity or severe personality change can be the outcome. Every injury is unique and those more seriously affected may have severe memory problems, personality changes and chronic fatigue. Sometimes the changes are more subtle, but profound nonetheless, and in all cases these outcomes are life-altering for the sufferer, family, friends and colleagues.
Headway has initiated Brain Awareness Week in order to highlight the ‘hidden’ problems that people with brain injury experience and the difficulties they have accessing services in their own community once they return home. Often, part of the tragedy for people with brain injury is that they have no obvious physical disability but suffer from many hidden problems such as poor memory, behavioural problems and poor social skills. The potential for misunderstanding is obvious and yet here is an area that cries out for sensitivity and awareness. This event is an essential part of educating the public to the role each of us can play in showing that sensitivity and developing that awareness. It is also a very reassuring and positive showcase of the achievements of those who are coping with brain injury.
As with all debilitating illnesses, the role played by medicine and, in particular, by research is crucial and here again through Brain Awareness Week you add greatly to the international effort to bring the message of hope offered by outstanding progress in neuroscience. Disseminating information on the brain and on ongoing research in an understandable and accessible manner is an important and very laudable part of Headway’s purpose.
Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do to help others through what is an undeniably difficult life journey. It is a journey that is much easier undertaken in caring and compassionate company and that is at the core of Headway’s mission – to be a friend who makes life easier, more bearable, less lonely, more hope-filled.
I hope that Brain Awareness Week is a great success.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh.