Australian Journal of Rural Health explores landmark study on Aboriginal brain injury rehabilitation

Professor Beth Armstrong and her research colleagues across Western Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales have published the results of their innovative Healing Right Way study, which aimed to improve rehabilitation services for Aboriginal people following stroke and traumatic brain injury.

This was the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) to focus on Aboriginal people’s recovery journeys in this area, introducing the novel role of Aboriginal Brain Injury Coordinator across WA and delivering cultural training to more than 250 hospital staff in four metropolitan and four regional sites.

Nine Aboriginal Brain Injury Coordinators were employed, providing six months of support to participants across the state. The study recruited 108 Aboriginal participants, 75% of whom were from rural areas. Although many were recruited in city hospitals and returned to diverse rural locations during recovery, follow-up rates remained impressively high.

To read the full results, please go the following link here.

To read the companion paper discussing the project’s process evaluation, describing how the project unfolded in more detail, please go to the following link here.