This section of My Technology Space provides information and resources to assist allied health professionals and assistive technology advisors to understand the future supports that could be useful in assisting the person with their goals.

A person who has acquired brain injury may already have supports in place, which may include the use of products, services and other types of supports - including help from other people, animal supports, or other cognitive strategies like structured routines, checklists and visual prompts - to assist them to initiate or complete everyday activities.

Future supports may also be considered to add to, replace or complement existing support strategies in place, to help the person with remembering, planning, organising and problem solving, and starting and completing activities. These supports may be put in place at home, in the community or in other environments, like school or work.

When choosing assistive technology and other supports, it is important for health professionals to get to know the person and their goals, including the supports the person believes may be right for them in the future.

Questions about the person’s future supports may be helpful, including:

• Exploring assistive technology
• Considering other alternatives
• Goal setting related to everyday activities.

Exploring Assistive technology

This section of My Technology Space provides information and resources to assist allied health professionals and other assistive technology advisors to explore assistive technology the person with brain injury thinks may be of benefit to them in the future, linked to their goals and activity preferences.

When thinking about future supports, it is important to first explore the assistive technology the person currently uses as well as products they have tried in the past. Understanding what assistive technology is working well for the person, and reasons why they stopped using certain assistive products will help you to think together about possible future assistive technology supports, as well as the services that are needed to help with assistive technology assessment, decision making, customisation of the product to the person’s goals and needs, training and education of the person and their key supporters to use the product effectively, and follow up maintenance or review over time.

Considering other alternatives

This section of My Technology Space provides information and resources to assist allied health professionals and other assistive technology advisors to explore what other support types the person with brain injury may benefit from in the future, linked to their goals and activity preferences.

Whilst assistive technology may be one type of support considered with the person, other alternatives should also be considered. It is important to get to know more about the person and their goals.

This may include:

• key contacts in their life;
• their activities, interests and roles;
• the environments in which they do activities;
• their social networks;
• beginning to explore the goals the person would like to achieve in the future.

Setting an activity goal

This section of My Technology Space provides information and resources to assist allied health professionals and other assistive technology advisors to explore and set goals with the person with brain injury, linked to their activity preferences.

Recovery from brain injury can occur over a long period, and goal setting can be an important strategy to help to see the progress being made over time. Goals can be big or small, simple or complex, or may focus on regaining participation in past - or developing new - activities, skills, interests or habits.

It can be helpful to work with others like family members, friends or other allied health professionals in the team – to both think about, as well as note down and monitor progress towards, goals. This sort of collaboration is an important part of setting goals that can be achieved. Measurement of steps made towards goal attainment can also be helpful to see progress being made.

Below are links to a checklist - Section B on this checklist may help to explore a person’s activity preferences to help to identify and select an activity goal important to the person, and Section C can help to explore goals together.

There is also a link to the Community Integration Questionnaire-Revised and Role Checklist, which can also assist to understand a person’s participation in activities and life roles, and help to identify areas they may wish to change.

You may like to read about Benji’s story and the possible range of future supports, and alternatives to assistive technology.

The next section of the website will assist you to understand more about the types of assistive technology that may be considered when supporting people following acquired brain injury. Select here to go to ‘types of assistive technology’.