On Monday 29^th October 2019, I went along to the UCL World Stroke Day and had a demonstration of iReadMore from the Neurotherapeutics Group, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

iReadMore is an app-based therapy that improves reading speed and accuracy for people who have language problems after a stroke that involves matching written and spoken words.

Fast-forward to December 5^th 2019, I was invited to take part in a focus group to help design and test iReadMore before they release it in 2020.

Three other participants and myself tried it out and then had time to talk about what we liked about it (or didn’t!) and ways that it could be changed to improve it.

The PhD Student, Tom Langford, talked us through it and Dr Victoria Fleming (researcher) helped me get started. There were 2 parts.

The 1^st part was called the ‘Exposure Phase’.  We had an Android tablet each and a set of earphones, so we could concentrate on the task. There were some cards on the screen and we had to pick each one and turn it over but you only had to watch and listen.

The 2^nd part was the ‘Challenge Phase’. You had to read the word on the screen and listen to the word (either the same word or a different one). If the written and spoken words where the same, you had to press the green button. If they were different from each other, you had to press the red button.

Before my stroke, I never liked looking at instructions to tell me how something was put together, I just tried it and then looked at the instructions afterwards, just in case!   That’s just how I was !

Now, I have to tell myself to read the instructions first, otherwise my brain doesn’t know the correct route.

I sat down with my tablet ready and earphones on, ready to go and waiting for the next step. What I was supposed to do next was just like everybody else, to read the instructions first from the leaflet and then play with the tablet, but I just sat there waiting for a minute and in the end saying “what do I do now?” to Victoria.

Luckily, Victoria took me through the 1^st part and then I could work out the rest of it. I definitely need to change the order in which I do things now (I have picked up a few in the last year) to train the brain again!

Once we had done it a couple of times then we had a chat about the various things that we liked/didn’t like etc. We all had a say and between all of us, we bought a lot of things to the table which were food for thought for the iReadMore team.

I thought the session was extremely good and it really got my head buzzing in a different kind of way. I was a Salesperson/Manager for 20 years before my stroke and after as well and it has a different, exciting new direction on things, especially when it come to the release date, then I can talk about it to my Stroke Survivors friends!

If you want to find out more about iReadMore, please go to: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/icn/research/neurotherapeutics/therapy-apps