Top Designers to Provide Design Training for Spinal Injury Patients
June 7, 2010 | Levent OZLER
People suffering from spinal cord injuries could benefit from design training according to leading designers Sir John Sorrell and Richard Seymour. As part of a new pilot organised by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) designers will examine whether the creative, problem-solving skills used in design might help disabled people become more independent - and in the long run - assist in their return to work.
The project, Design & Rehabilitation, will involve a series of inspirational design presentations and workshops for patients facing discharge from the eleven UK/Eire specialist spinal injury centres - beginning at Stoke Mandeville and RNOH Stanmore.
The project aims to prove that design as a discipline, or thought process, can address the dramatic loss of confidence and diminished motivation that results from a sudden physical impairment.
Spinal cord injured people are relatively well served with opportunities to engage in sport and physical activity, but programmes which convene them to share knowledge and experience of technical or professional issues are more scare.
The purpose of providing introductory design training is to give confidence and comfort to patients facing a life in which independence may be an extreme challenge, and by extension, for their families and carers. Many who have survived a devastating injury will have come to realise, out of necessity, the greatest design lesson of all: that you can change yourself. The object of this project is to extend this hope to many more by showing how design can increase your confidence and will to adapt.
"People trained in design are practised in solving problems and they have methods and tools and tips that everyone can use," said Emily Campbell. "The RSA believes that these methods and tools and tips can help to rebuild confidence after severe and life-changing injury."
"Fundamentally, design is deciding what something is like and how it will work, commented Sir John Sorrell. "The RSA stands to learn a lot about how to spread an understanding of design by working with this group."
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