Teaching programme

Neuro-disabilities and hence years lived with disabilities are on the rise in our societies globally, not only in high income countries (HIC) with their ageing populations, but also in low and middle income countries (LMIC), e.g. secondary to changes in communicable disease mortality and lifestyles. Neurorehabilitation can effectively reduce disability, improve independence with activities of daily living, and prevent the necessity of people affected to become institutionalised.

Such clinical benefits are achieved by dedicated and specifically trained inter-professional teams of healthcare professionals working in specialist units of care. Accordingly, such teams need both structures (e.g. NR units) and appropriate training to fulfil their tasks.

From a global perspective, there is a disparity of healthcare structures and healthcare professionals with specific training in neurorehabilitation across regions. Furthermore, educational opportunities vary considerably across countries and regions, local education institutions are frequently not in the position to provide such specialist NR training to the extent needed. Consequently, there is a role for national and international agencies and societies to fill the gap and support educational initiatives.

WFNR hosts Certificate Teaching Courses (TC) on Clinical Pathways in Stroke Rehabilitation, open to healthcare professionals from all disciplines involved in neurorehabilitation and coming from a world-wide background.

Teaching and its Goals

The teaching goals are both (1) gaining active knowledge in clinical decision making for stroke rehabilitation based on evidence-based practice recommendations and (2) knowing how to apply such knowledge in clinical practice (based on regional circumstances).

All attendees receive the corresponding WFNR book as e-copy (free of charge).

Attendees are asked to read the book chapter that presented the contents of each lecture in advance. High-quality lectures are given by international experts in the field, most coming from the WFNR’s Special Interest Groups.

Attendees are encouraged and are given the chance to address their questions that might  focus on either knowledge aspects and/or questions about how to apply the knowledge in (their) clinical practice.

Faculty, attendees and course schedule

The inter-professional course faculty includes experts for major topics in stroke rehabilitation who are members of the group of thirty-four book chapter authors, supported by other WFNR experts serving as session chairs.

Everybody who pre-registers https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/WFNR_TC_pre-registration
will be contacted and informed about the steps to be taken once a next course that is open for registration will be scheduled (in the future).

From previous courses, more than 200 attendees qualified for the WFNR certificate. Attendees came from all continents, various professional backgrounds, e.g. medical doctors and therapeutic professions, with a broad distribution in age and past experience in neurorehabilitation. Regular feedback asked for and given by attendees was very positive with regard to lecture contents, expertise of the faculty, and personal educational benefit further indicating that the course fulfilled an important educational role.

Continuous Medical Education (CME)

Certification of the course by the chamber of physicians in charge for the host institution, i.e. the University Medical Centre Greifswald (Germany) have previously been applied for, and CME credits have been given accordingly (for each lecture). The attendees’ individual certificate states both the lectures attended and the overall CME credit points that apply individually (certificates are issued only if the requirements for a certificate are met with regard to attendance and final online exam).

Conclusions

Previous WFNR certificate TCs held by an international faculty with weekly scheduled interactive web seminars were well attended and perceived by a broad global audience of healthcare professionals with background in NR. Overall, the TCs were a great success promoting specialist knowledge for clinical decision making in stroke rehabilitation.

Many thanks to all members of the faculty for providing such an excellent educational opportunity, to all attendees for pursuing the course so persistently and diligently, and  congratulations for their very remarkable course achievements!

Information for people who want to obtain the book or want to attend the next course

Don’t hesitate to download your own free copy of the WFNR book on Clinical Pathways in Stroke Rehabilitation at:  https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030585044.

Everybody with an interest to obtain further information about a teaching course can pre-register at: 
https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/WFNR_TC_pre-registration
(note this is not a registration for the TC itself: registration proper will be a further step)

For the Education Committee of the WFNR

Thomas Platz
World Federation for Neurorehabilitation (WFNR)
Education Committee and SIG Clinical Pathways
Chair: Prof. Dr. Thomas Platz
c/o Institute for Neurorehabilitation and Evidence-Based Practice, BDH-Klinik Greifswald
Karl-Liebknecht-Ring 26A
D-17491 Greifswald, Germany

Email: thomas.platz@uni-greifswald.de