Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate patient perspectives on attending pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). This qualitative case study identifies the benefits and challenges to attending PR and presents areas of improvements as recommended by patients.

A qualitative case study of a UK case study based on a PR programme based on undertaking focus groups (n=3) and interviews (n=15) with current and former patients.

The findings report patient perspectives of the challenges and benefits of attending a PR programme along with recommendations on how the service could be improved.

The authors focussed solely on a UK PR programme, so the findings might not be applicable to other countries if PR is organised and provided in a unique way or setting.

This paper provides valuable insights to patient perspectives offrom patients attending PR programmes, which are useful to those running and designing these services.

The findings identify the benefits and challenges for patients attending PR programmes and suggest areas where improvements can be made.

There is a widely accepted myth in New Zealand that the Elam School of Fine Arts in the University of Auckland is an organised anarchy, internally divided and cantankerously unbiddable, and further, that this is largely inevitable given the nature of artists and designers. Its unique culture, however, is shown in this paper to have been generated and reinforced over decades by the exigencies of environment, partitioned and media‐based curricular structures, intense and volatile relationships, and, occasionally, inappropriate leadership services. Despite this history, Elam has sustained a major role in shaping New Zealand’s cultural identity, and continues to produce some of the country’s most outstanding visual artists and designers. The paradox involved is partially explained by persistent evidence of self‐managing teams, creative problem‐solving, and independent excellence, that suggest deep and plural commitments to a virtue ethic.

Inclusion Europe, the European movement of people with intellectual disabilities and their families, shared what people with intellectual disabilities and their families faced during the COVID-19 crisis. Collecting information showed people with intellectual disabilities were segregated and discriminated against. The pandemic intensified and magnified the segregation and discrimination of people with intellectual disabilities, shedding light on their exclusion. Many human rights were violated. Therefore, such testimonies should encourage governments and institutions to urgently design a society that includes people with intellectual disabilities and their families.

Purpose: Due to the developmental nature of autism, which is often diagnosed in preschool or elementary school-aged children, non-autistic parents of autistic children typically play a prominent role in autism advocacy. However, as autistic children become adults and adult diagnoses of autism continue to rise, autistic adults have played a more prominent role in advocacy. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the histories of adult and non-autistic parent advocacy in the United States and to examine the points of divergence and convergence.

Approach: Because of their different perspectives and experiences, advocacy by autistic adults and non-autistic parents can have distinctive goals and conflicting priorities. Therefore, the approach we take in the current chapter is a collaboration between an autistic adult and a non-autistic parent, both of whom are research scholars.

Findings: The authors explore the divergence of goals and discourse between autistic self-advocates and non-autistic parent advocates and offer three principles for building future alliances to bridge the divide between autistic adults and non-autistic parents.

Implications: The chapter ends with optimism that US national priorities can bridge previous gulfs, creating space for autistic adult and non-autistic parent advocates to work together in establishing policies and practices that improve life for autistic people and their families and communities.

‘Thesaurus’ comes from the Greek—a storehouse or treasury. The Shorter Oxford English dictionary gives 1736 for the English usage ‘a treasury or storehouse of knowledge, as a dictionary, encyclopaedia or the like’. In 1852, Peter Mark Roget published his Thesaurus of English words and phrases: ‘a collection … arranged, not in alphabetical order as they are in a dictionary, but according to the ideas which they express… The object aimed at is, the idea being given, to find the word, or words, by which that idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed.’ All who write English have heard of this thesaurus.

While ageing with an intellectual (learning) disability has been subject to increased research in recent years, there remains little knowledge regarding the daily practice issues that disability workers struggle most to support in this cohort. The purpose of this paper is to gain feedback directly from staff regarding the problems they experience in daily work, and to evaluate whether any changes to legislation or practice could potentially alleviate identified areas of concern.

A Delphi project was conducted over three rounds with participants from rural areas of New South Wales (NSW). The panel was composed of support workers who assist people ageing with a learning disability. Participants were asked their perceptions of the main practice issues facing them while they provide support.

The panel identified 29 issues that were considered problematic in the provision of support to people ageing with a learning disability. A thematic analysis indicated three main themes of access to services; time constraints; and funding.

The participants in this study were all disability workers employed by non-government organisations in rural NSW, and as such, many of the issues identified may be specific to this population cohort and geographic setting. Any generalisation of these results to other locations or populations must be considered within these limitations.

Identification of the issues facing disability staff may facilitate government, health care providers and disability organisations to proactively plan to address current and future problem areas. The consequent effect of improving practices can assist individuals to receive better support and lead to a corresponding improvement in their quality of life. The current implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme in Australia is an ideal opportunity for cross-sectoral collaboration to change practice to facilitate better support for a highly vulnerable group of the community.

In 1937, a pictorial fine art map of the University of Toronto was designed and painted by artist Alexander Scott Carter. The map was commissioned by Vincent Massey, then High Commissioner for Canada in Britain, and given as a gift to Hart House. As a vibrantly visual rendition of the university's historical lineage, the map depicts the evolution of the university's various colleges along with its founders, contemporary geographical boundaries, and lush and verdant landscapes. The purpose of this paper is to inquire into its cultural and historical importance.

The paper analyses, and provides a viewpoint on, A. Scott Carter's map.

Carter's map reveals the discursive and visual interpretive frameworks in which the map was situated and the narratives and myths that it sanctioned. The map performs an important function in authorizing the collective identity of the university and its actual and imagined communities. It provides a cultural expression of shared values, ideals, and particular historical traditions. The university's place in the hierarchy and tradition of Canadian higher education in the British Commonwealth is embodied in the map at a time when such ideas were under scrutiny by professors and intellectuals who were arguing for the extrication of Canada from colonial inheritances.

Carter's map highlights the university and its integral cultural artifacts, spaces, and practices as being replete with contested meanings, experiences, and symbolism. Through dynamic cartography, new approaches in deciphering the official and informal campus emerge to produce a nuanced and multifaceted historical picture of university and academic cultures.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.