From diagnosis to clinical intervention, the rehabilitation process involves multiple stages, agents and goals. The importance of the active participation of the family in this process, in the context of hearing impairment, was the theme of an event promoted by the Santos Dumont Institute (ISD), last Friday (2) which brought together service users and their families, health professionals, students and members of the community in general.
Held in commemoration of the closing of Blue September, a month dedicated to raising awareness about hearing impairment and the deaf community, the event was organized by the ISD's multidisciplinary team, which includes preceptors and residents of the service offered by the Institute within the SUS (Brazilian Public Health System).
The program included lectures with the ISD's social work preceptor, Anna Waleska Menezes, who discussed the rights of children with hearing impairments with the participants; and with the speech therapist Ingrid Santos, from the SUVAG Center, who addressed the importance of a support network and the family in children's health care.
Multiprofessional speech therapist and preceptor Gizele Nascimento, organizer of the event, explains that the initiative sought to bring together both families already served by the Specialized Rehabilitation Center (CER ISD) and the community in general, with the main objective of reinforcing, through a professional perspective and the sharing of experiences, the importance of collective and person-centered care.
“From diagnosis to intervention, there are many stages, and we prioritize family participation in all of them. When the family participates actively, the child has a much greater chance of success in language development and other skills,” says Gizele.
In addition, the event featured testimonials from Ana Angélica Martins, mother of a child who uses a cochlear implant, and Glenda Galvão, a speech therapist who was diagnosed late with hearing loss and whose professional work now focuses on children with the same diagnosis.
According to speech therapist Ingrid Santos, it is essential to involve the user and their family in decision-making and communication with professionals and the health service, to reinforce an understanding on both sides of the needs, challenges, and potential within rehabilitation.
“Ideally, users should bring their narratives and their needs so that we can do more effective work. When we listen to the family and the user, we can understand their context so that we can achieve the therapeutic goals and bring the therapy into the home,” says the professional.
About ISD
The Santos Dumont Institute (ISD) is a Social Organization of the Federal Executive Branch, supervised by the Ministry of Education, with the intervention of the Ministry of Sport. It encompasses the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience and the Anita Garibaldi Center for Education and Research in Health, both located in Macaíba. The ISD's mission is to promote education for life, forming citizens through integrated teaching, research, and outreach activities, as well as contributing to a more just and humane transformation of Brazilian social reality.
