Minds & Movement: Psychological Guidance for People with Motor Neurodegenerative Disorders
An initiative developed by Lancaster University and the British Psychological Society aimed at producing guidance on psychological approaches to the understanding and treatment of psychological difficulties in adults with motor neurodegenerative conditions.
Minds & Movement: Psychological Guidance for People with Motor Neurodegenerative Disorders
People with motor neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) are widely reported to be at risk of higher levels of low mood, anxiety and other psychological difficulties than age-matched controls. However, psychological difficulties are still mainly formulated within a medical model which views all difficulties as ‘symptoms’ of disruptions to neurological functioning. Psychological explanations are often marginalised and, as a result, access to psychological services (as opposed to psychiatric referrals) is patchy across the UK.
The Division of Clinical Psychology and the Faculty of Psychology of Older People of the British Psychological Society (BPS) have commissioned the Division of Health Research at Lancaster University to explore new avenues to current psychological approaches to motor NDDs. In particular, a group of researchers consisting of Dr Jane Simpson, Dr Fiona Eccles, and Dr Nicolò Zarotti is currently working to produce innovative national guidance to to the understanding and treatment of psychological difficulties in adults with motor NDDs such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease, and Huntington’s disease.
The guidance will be an invaluable compendium of theoretical and practice guidance for all psychologists (and other health professionals wishing to adopt a psychologically informed approach) working with people with motor NDDs. It will also show the value of a psychological approach (as opposed to one based solely on a medical model) and will challenge conceptualisations of distress which do not encompass a biopsychosocial framework.
National recognised guidance is a fundamental aspect to help ensure safe, effective and high quality provision in clinical psychology and provides an easy resource for practitioners who do not have the time to access all relevant literature at source. However, this cannot be achieved without the vital input from Service Users, Carers and other key stakeholders. If you are currently involved with people with motor NDDs and want to share your experience and/or expertise, please feel free to get in touch.
News and updates on the project can be found on the following social media profiles:
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