Living with acquired brain injury

PETER BRADLEY, the man whose name is synonymous with the charitable foundation set up to provide assisted living residences for people with acquired brain injury (ABI), turns 50 tomorrow.

"Peter doesn't like a fuss made of him but we're celebrating. We thought we'd never see the day that he'd turn 50," says his sister Barbara O'Connell, chief executive of the Peter Bradley Foundation.

We're sitting in the house in Glenageary, Co Dublin that Peter Bradley shares with two other men with ABI. Although pleased to be interviewed, with his sister and father, by The Irish Times, Bradley is restless.

"I'm not looking forward to my birthday," he says frankly, getting up to get himself a drink. His sister and father smile knowingly, watching carefully as he manoeuvres his way to the kettle and independently makes himself a cup of coffee.

The freedom to do what you like in your own home is evident as, moments later, Bradley excuses himself from the conversation and returns to his room to have a cigarette and listen to some music.

He comes and goes a few times during the interview.

The music of singer/songwriter John Martyn filters through the closed door as his father, Alex Bradley (now 82) and sister Barbara O'Connell begin to piece together the significant details of Bradley's life since he had a serious motorbike accident in Dublin 28 years ago.

"He was two months away from his final exams to become a solicitor when it happened," explains O'Connell. "He was unconscious for over three weeks. Very little was known about brain injury at the time and we didn't know what to expect."

When Bradley finally awoke from the coma, the only person he recognised initially was his mother. Although he had lost sight in one eye and hearing in one ear, he returned to his studies six months later only to discover that his concentration, short- and long-term memory were poor.

"The difficulty with people with ABI is that they often look the same but they are not. Their personality has changed and they aren't always aware of that," explains O'Connell.

The family decided that Bradley should return to the family home in Donegal for a while. However, they soon realised that this wasn't the solution so the entire family moved back to Dublin in the hope that the services there might help Bradley cope better with his condition.

"He did different things during this time. He spent some time travelling in France. He worked in various sheltered employment settings and then he spent four years working voluntarily on educational projects in the Philippines," O'Connell explains. While in the Philippines, Bradley had a car accident which left him further incapacitated and resulted in his spending six months in the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

Over the next 10 years, the lives of Bradley's parents and siblings were punctuated by life-threatening incidents in his life. "He's had at least six near-death experiences. He had a stroke in 1998 and also spent nine months in Beaumont Hospital that year. He got meningitis in 2000 and last year, he had another mini stroke," explains O'Connell.

However difficult it was to cope with the upheaval and unpredictability of a family member with ABI, it was seeing Bradley spend time in an Alzheimer's unit of a nursing home in Dublin that finally provoked the Bradley family to seek a better solution.

"He had had a mini stroke and ended up in a nursing home. It was just unbearable to see someone in his early 40s stuck in a day room, reading his books, smoking and drinking coffee all day long. He was also on high medication at the time and the combination of all of this is what made us do something about it," explains O'Connell.

"We knew that he couldn't live with any of us because he needed extra care but it was demoralising to see him in such a place at such a young age."

So together with her husband Maurice O'Connell, chief executive of the Alzheimer Society, and her sister, Paula (a speech therapist), Barbara O'Connell (an occupational therapist) approached the health authorities with the aim of converting the family's Dublin home into an assisted living residence for her brother and two other men with acquired brain injury.

"There was nothing in this country for people with ABI and it's only in the last number of years have people become more aware of the need for specialised services," says O'Connell. "It was a miracle how the health authorities came on board. It's been fantastic."

The Bradley family donated the house to the Peter Bradley Foundation and a staff of 13, paid by the HSE, now manage the assisted living residence.

The semi-detached house next door was later bought by the Peter Bradley Foundation and also converted to assisted living accommodation for three other men with ABI.

"I feel sad at times about what might have been but then you've just got to get on with things. For me personally, having Peter live in this house is marvellous because I know when I go that he will be looked after. It's a huge relief," says Alex Bradley.

Once people began to hear about how the Bradley family set up an assisted living residence for Peter Bradley and some other men, they were called on to help out in other situations.

"We hadn't planned to do more but the success of the approach we took leaked out. We began to hear about how other families were struggling with a family member with ABI," says O'Connell, who became chief executive of the Peter Bradley Foundation in 2002.

"I feel really passionate that if people with ABI get the right environment and are not shoehorned into inappropriate services, they can live happy lives. Some people we've helped can get back to work," she says.

"There are a lot of simple things you can do to help people get their confidence back and give them some dignity."

Bradley's eldest sister, Annette Conway, will travel from her home in Strabane, Co Tyrone to join other siblings, Paula, Hugh and Alex in celebrating his birthday together at the weekend.

She speaks for all the family when she says: "We'll never know the life he might have had, but out of that great tragedy has come the legacy of the Peter Bradley Foundation and that in itself is great," she says.

For further information, log onto peterbradleyfoundation.ie or call 01 - 280 4164.