Interviewer info

Lyssa Rome is a speech-language pathologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, where she facilitates groups for people with aphasia and their care partners. She owns an LPAA-focused private practice and specializes in working with people with aphasia, dysarthria, and other neurogenic conditions. She has worked in acute hospital, skilled nursing, and continuum of care settings. Prior to becoming an SLP, Lyssa was a public radio journalist, editor, and podcast producer.

In this episode, Lyssa Rome interviews Dr. Liss Brunner about how clinicians can incorporate social media into their work with people with acquired brain injuries.

Guest info

Dr Melissa 'Liss' Brunner is an early career researcher, lecturer at the University of Sydney, and a certified practicing speech pathologist with over twenty years of experience in supporting adults with swallowing and communication difficulties. Liss has clinical and research expertise in acquired neurologic disorders, particularly working with people who have experienced a stroke or traumatic brain injury (TBI). Diverse research experiences have enabled Liss to build specialist skills in qualitatively driven social media and digital health mixed methods research. Liss's doctoral research laid the necessary groundwork in understanding the complexity of the issues surrounding people with TBI using social media and how it may (or may not) be addressed during their rehabilitation.

Listener Take-aways

In today's episode you will:

• Understand how people with acquired brain injury use social media.
• Learn about barriers and facilitators for safe social media use after brain injury.
• Describe how speech-language pathologists can target social media use in rehab for people with acquired brain injury.

 

Edited Transcript

Lyssa Rome

Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Lyssa Rome. I'm a speech language pathologist on staff at the Aphasia Center of California and I see clients with aphasia and other neurogenic communication disorders in my LPAA-focused private practice. I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources.

 

I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Dr. Melissa or Liss Brunner. Liss is an early-career researcher, lecturer at the University of Sydney, and a certified practicing speech pathologist with over 20 years of experience in supporting adults with swallowing and communication difficulties. Liss has clinical and research expertise in acquired neurologic disorders, particularly working with people who have experienced a stroke or traumatic brain injury. She focuses on qualitatively driven social media and digital health mixed-methods research. Her doctoral research laid the necessary groundwork in understanding the complexity of the issues surrounding people with TBI using social media, and how it may or may not be addressed during their rehabilitation. Dr. Liss Brunner, welcome to the Aphasia Access podcast, I'm so glad to be talking with you.

 

Dr. Liss Brunner

Thanks so much for having me. I'm really, really excited to be here and talk about one of my favorite things.

 

Lyssa Rome 

Great. So I want to just start by asking you what made you want to study social media use among people with acquired brain injuries? And why is it important to study that?

 

Dr. Liss Brunner 

I suppose I want to start by asking you a question, Lyssa, if that's alright. Okay. So, I mean, do you use social media?

 

Lyssa Rome 

I do use social media.

 

Dr. Liss Brunner 

And what are your favorite types of social media? And why do you use them? Hope you don't mind me asking.

 

Lyssa Rome 

That's fine. So I primarily use two social media platforms. I use Facebook for professional reasons. There's a lot of networking amongst speech pathologists on Facebook. I also use it because I get some exercise classes there, so that's kind of nice. And then I also use Instagram, which I primarily go to to find out about knitting and sewing patterns, and to look for gardening ideas. So it's sort of more hobby-based for me.

 

Dr. Liss Brunner 

Perfect. I love that. I mean, I use Facebook also, but it's mainly to stay in touch with like high school or uni friends and my family. And I also use Instagram, and like you lots of hobby-based stuff. I love watching videos around food. Always makes me hungry, but I still love it. But I also love seeing what people are reading. So I will also quite often post what I've just read and get ideas for books that I could be reading and things like that. And I use it a little bit professionally as well to share what I've been doing and what I've been working on. And I use Twitter or X, as it's now known, probably more so professionally. So I do a lot of sharing about the work that I'm doing in there. But I use a whole heap of other platforms, as well, and kind of all for different reasons.

 

If you think about it, over 60% of the world's population, actually, are active social media users. And we've just talked about how we use more than one platform. The average is actually seven different social media platforms for people who are active users. And so I got interested in supporting others in using social media, because I realized how integral it was starting to become, in my own life, and for the people around me.

 

After a brain injury, we know it happens like that in a split second. And it can happen to anyone at any age. And so after those brain injuries occur, people lose lots of their friends. And, you know, their relationships just aren't what they used to be. They're quite often strained. They're not as fun as they used to be. And it can be really hard and devastating, not just for that person, but everyone around them, as well. And so family and close friends can find it really challenging to stay connected in a really meaningful way. And you don't really realize how important that is until it changes. And so, in rehab, I really like to support people to build up their social communication skills, with different people, different places. And I really believe that these days, one of those places we need to consider is social media. It's great to stay connected, you can make new friends, you can practice your communication skills in different ways, you can just kind of be included. So you know, you can tell everyone what's going on in your life after injury, or you can ignore that and just talk about other things like gardening and food and stuff. You can use social media to be what you want it to be. So that's kind of why I got into it. And why I think it's important.

 

Lyssa Rome 

It sounds like you've just described both how people use it before their injury, but then also some changes in use after their injury, for example, and think of in the States—I don't know if this is also true in Australia—there's Caring Bridge and Go Fund Me and other sorts of websites where people are sharing information about their rehab process and about what's going on with someone who's had a brain injury or another kind of illness. Tell us a little bit about how people with acquired brain injuries are using social media.

 

Dr. Liss Brunner

Yeah, absolutely. I think this is one of the most interesting things to me is that I've interviewed lots of people after a brain injury about how they use social media. And just like many of us, they use a variety of platforms, they have individual preferences, they use them for different purposes. Some prefer Instagram, others prefer Facebook, others prefer online gaming with their friends. Many of them use social media for making and maintaining relationships. So that connection, others use it for altruism, so supporting others in need and sharing their experiences and strategies after a brain injury. But others also use it for advocacy, and activism. So sharing their experiences after brain injury to raise awareness, and reduce stigma that can be associated with it. Others are really active in contacting politicians and advocating for better support services and infrastructure. So they use it for a multitude of reasons. And it's quite often deeply personal, the way in which they do so.

 

Unfortunately, I did also find out that quite often, people kind of relearning to use social media, sort of through trial and error. So they don't necessarily get lots of support to do it. they've encountered lots of challenges in using it well, so they can have some difficulties with cognitive fati