We are comparing two different methods for helping Canadian Armed Forces veterans with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) manage everyday cognitive difficulties. Cognitive rehabilitation is a type of therapy that helps people with brain injury who have challenges in everyday thinking.

Dr. Turkstra and her colleagues in the United States have developed a streamlined version of this type of cognitive rehabilitation therapy that can be done in person or virtually and takes place over a three-week period. We will provide education materials only to one group and individual cognitive rehabilitation delivered by a trained speech language pathologist or occupational therapist to the other group. We want to find out whether the individual therapy is better than providing the usual educational material. The therapy sessions are audio-recorded. At McMaster, our job is to listen to the recordings and making sure the therapists are following the study manual. That includes making notes of what the therapists say or do. What we learn in this study may help veterans with mTBI and cognitive issues affect their abilities to do everyday activities.

We are comparing two different methods for helping adults with Long COVID manage everyday cognitive challenges.

Cognitive rehabilitation is a type of therapy that helps people who have challenges with everyday thinking because of a brain injury. Dr. Turkstra and her colleagues in the United States have developed a streamlined version of cognitive rehabilitation therapy for mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) that can be completed in person or virtually and takes place over a three-week period. The therapy was originally designed for adults with mTBI and we want to know if it can also be used to treat people with cognitive complaints from Long COVID. We will provide education materials only to one group and individual cognitive rehabilitation delivered by a trained speech language pathologist or occupational therapist to the other group.

We want to find out whether the individual therapy is as feasible and accessible than the usual educational material. What we learn in this study may help treat day-to-day thinking challenges in Long COVID.

Teenagers are the most active users of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and social media and today. Computer-mediated communication involves the use of technology to communicate with others by texting, sending pictures and videos and voice chatting. Teens use social media platforms, like Snapchat and Instagram, for a variety of things, including playing games, watching videos and chatting with friends.

Teens with disabilities, however, often have fewer social connections on social media. For teens with an acquired brain injury (ABI), reduced online social participation with friends may be due to difficulty with cognitive (e.g., attention), communication (e.g., understanding and using language) and social communication (e.g., understanding humour) skills.

Features of CMC and social media, such as less reliance on nonverbal cues (e.g., reading body language) and environmental distractions, may help adolescents overcome some of these barriers and challenges. However, there is a gap in the research about how teens with ABI use CMC and what kinds of supports could help them get more involved in social activities.

The goal of this research is to learn more about how teenagers with ABI use computer-mediated communication and social media, and find out where support is needed.

Many people with brain injury have challenges when they try to use social media. Social media platforms, like Facebook, can have lots of pictures and words and it can be hard to keep track of what you’ve already come across. The purpose of our study is to come up with ways to help people with brain injury access social media platforms, like Facebook.

We are asking people with brain injury to try out online tools that we have made and to give us feedback. Each person will be given a laptop with the tools already on it. The results of this study will help us make the tools better for people with brain injury, so they can stay connected through social media