Meet Tina Kad, a Multilingual Specialist Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) at Uplands Rehabilitation Centre

Off the back of Action for Brain Injury Awareness Week, we sat down with Tina Kad, a Consultant and Specialist Speech and Language Therapist at Uplands Rehabilitation Centre to talk about her role and how she helps patients at the centre.

With a Bachelor of Science (BSC) in Psychology and Master of Science (MSc) in Health Psychology, Tina Kad runs her own consultancy, Speech Therapy Interactive, and supports Uplands Rehabilitation Centre by working with individuals with communication and swallowing difficulties as a result of an acquired neurological condition such as brain injury and stroke.

What is your role at Uplands Rehabilitation Centre and how long have you been a part of the team?

I joined the Uplands Rehabilitation Centre team back in 2021 and once a week as a part of my consultancy work, I visit the centre to work with adults with acquired neurological conditions such as brain injury and stroke.

Could you provide us with an overview of the type of work you complete at Uplands Rehabilitation Centre?

After a brain injury, speech therapists play a fundamental role in an individual's recovery helping a person regain their ability to communicate.

Brain injury can result in memory loss, confusion, poor organisational reasoning and judgement skills, and disinhibition, or the inability to stop inappropriate behaviour. This injury can drastically change a person and since the injury is invisible to the eye, it’s often difficult for others to understand why they have changed.

There are several ways in which I am involved in their recovery process. Firstly, I will evaluate the client and work with Upland’s to determine the right treatment plan for them. The plan will be individualised and depends on where the person is in their recovery process.

The main goal is to always increase the person’s independence in every aspect of their life.

When an individual with brain injury comes to Uplands Rehabilitation Centre, I work on some on some of the following treatment targets, looking at the best ways to:

• Improve memory, such as through journaling
• Relearn ways to problem-solve, such as figuring out how to pay bills
• Regain organisational skills, such as making appointments
• Improve self-monitoring skills, which might include one’s body language and what one says to others

Sometimes this may be helping the individual work with a job coach to get back to work, or run an errand using compensatory strategies to help, such as organisers or checklists.

Apart from the communication difficulties, I also help support individuals with their cognitive difficulties which can impact their communication. Executive functioning is a group of cognitive skills including attention, working memory, inhibition, and problem solving.

Someone who has impaired executive functioning will have difficulty completing tasks, organising multiple steps of a process into the right order, or keeping their things organised.

In addition, they may have a hard time controlling their impulses or emotions. I will target those areas in speech therapy by using audio and visual feedback, teaching the person to relearn nonverbal gestures, and more.

As a speech therapist, my main goal is to improve the person’s communication skills, a brain injury can also impact facial expressions, chewing and swallowing, and more. A person with a brain injury may have a resulting impairment such as dysarthria, aphasia, apraxia, or poor executive functioning.

For me, SLT isn’t about words but about actions, choices, confidence, and independence I pass on to my clients at Uplands Rehabilitation Centre.

I feel grateful and privileged that people trust and allow me to be a part of their journey.  I enjoy working hard, advocating for my clients at Uplands so they can have access to their basic human rights of communication and eating.

What is your favourite part of your role?

At Uplands Rehabilitation Centre, my aim as a SLT is for my clients to have a meaningful life after stroke/brain injury, showing people how valuable they are to this world. I wake up every morning with determination and go to bed with satisfaction knowing that I have helped support individuals to regain control of their lives and reach their full potential.

Situated a stone's throw away from the Westcliff-on-Sea coastline, Uplands Rehabilitation Centre is an innovative 17-bed service providing short-stay therapy led rehabilitation and re-enablement services.

If you are looking for rehabilitation services or are looking to join our highly skilled and specialist therapy team, contact us on 01702352752 or email us on info@uplandscarecentre.com.