Evaluating Community Living and Work Participation Environments and Technologies for Use by People who have a Stroke: A Consumer-Directed, Dynamic Assessment Methodology

Contact Information:

Joy Hammel, Ph.D.
hammel@uic.edu

Abstract

"Community Participation" represents the "degree of connection that citizens with disabilities have to their physical and social surroundings." Equal access to the community, and the right to live and participate in the community with supports, is a central tenet of the disability rights movement that is reinforced in the Olmstead decision. Despite its importance, we have only begun to investigate what community living and participation mean, how they are experienced by people following a stroke, and how the environment, and enabling or disabling features of it, affect participation choice and control. Some of the questions that will be answered by this evaluation section include:

1. To what extent are people accessing and participating in home, work and community environments of choice following a stroke?
2. What factors do people who had a stroke, important others in their lives and access specialists identify as barriers to participation within and across environments?
3. Why are so few people returning to work after a stroke? Are there features of the work environment and technologies within it that could be adapted to support reintegration back into the work environment by people who have had a stroke?
4. How can existing environmental access guidelines be improved to reflect the identified needs and preferences of people who had a stroke in the creation of access ready and age-friendly work and community environments?

This evaluation project will take place during the second through the fourth years of the grant (2004-2007)