Success For The European Federation Of Neurological Associations 'Good Life' Symposium

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Also Included In: Parkinson's Disease
Article Date: 17 Sep 2009 - 6:00 PDT

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The European Federation of Neurological Associations (EFNA) celebrated the success of its 'Good Life' symposium at the European Federation of Neurological Societies (EFNS) conference in Florence last weekend.

More than 300 guests attended the session which was hosted by Mary G. Baker MBE, President of EFNA and Professor David Vodušek, of Slovenia, Treasurer of EFNS.

The idea behind the 'Good Life' session was the brainchild of Mary who is convinced of the importance of self management and self education as part of the support for people coping with neurological disorders such as Parkinson's Disease. Mary was delighted at the outcome of this session and the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the audience: "The 'Good Life' session has proved to be a great way of encouraging more positive thinking and demonstrating the role that personal determination, motivation and hope can have. At EFNA we are continually looking for new and better ways to close these gaps and the work we have recently started with Healthy Interactions, on a series of exciting self-education Conversation Map programmes, is designed to support this objective by giving patients and carers the tools to live a better life."

The 'Good Life' session demonstrated the power of personal 'Renaissance' with music and movement performances given by people coping with neurological disorders, but who have not allowed their condition to get in the way of making the most of their talents and skills as well as their quality of life.

The final part of the 'Good Life' session saw Paul Lasiuk, one of the founders of Healthy Interactions, give a presentation about the Conversation Map programmes to the audience, which was followed by an interactive session with facilitators working with members of the audience to deliver a 'live' Conversation Map session created specifically for patients with Parkinson's Disease. Speaking about the session, Paul said: "I could not have asked for a better audience. When we moved onto the interactive part of my session there were people crowding around each of the demonstration tables, all eager to see how Conversation Maps will work to help people with Parkinson's Disease and their carers self manage their condition more effectively."

Source
European Federation of Neurological Associations