Calendar of events
Here is a comprehensive list of the education events and opportunities that will support your continuous professional development - from webinars to conferences.
Click on a drop down to get more information about a particular event and as well as how to book or take part.
Webinars
A focus on oral nutrition in MND: current evidence, managing risks and exploring good practice – 31 January 2023
Time: 11.00am – 12.30pm
Aim: To develop increased understanding about the nutritional and dysphagia management of people with MND and the implications for provision of person-centred care.
Objectives
- to examine the role of nutrition in the management of MND and its impact on people living with MND
- to develop understanding of the process of decision making about eating and drinking orally where there is a known risk of aspiration or choking, and the implications of this in person-centred care
- to consider how the MDT can work together to improve outcomes and patient experience.
By the end of the session participants will have:
- an understanding of the nutritional management of people living with MND
- an appreciation of how the MDT can collaborate to ensure good nutritional management
- an awareness of how to support people with MND in decision making regarding having food/drink orally where there are acknowledged risks such as aspiration or choking.
Speakers:
Nutritional management for people living with MND – Sean White, Dietitian and NIHR Doctoral Fellow at the University of Sheffield
Eating and Drinking with Acknowledged Risks - clinical considerations when supporting people living with MND – Erin Probert, Clinical Lead Speech and Language Therapist, Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability
Expiratory Muscle Strength Training (EMST) for patients living with MND – 28 February 2023
Time: 11.00am – 12.30pm
Aim: To develop an understanding of Expiratory Muscle Strength Training (EMST) and the evidence to support its use in people living with MND.
Objectives
- to understand the theory and rationale for use of EMST in patients with MND
- to explore current research using EMST and its place in person centred care
- to examine current practice and contrast it with management of MND using EMST
By the end of the session participants will have:
- been introduced to the principles of EMST
- an appreciation of EMST practice and research evidence
- a more confident understanding of the aims of EMST and when it may be appropriate for people living with MND.
Speaker:
Jodi Allen, Clinical Specialist Speech & Language Therapist, The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queens Square, London
Speaker biography coming soon
Equipment Solutions – your questions answered - 25 April 2023
This webinar is an opportunity to get your questions about equipment for people living with MND answered by a panel of experts. On the day of the webinar the webinar host will interview the panel and put your questions or case studies to them for consideration and discussion.
Please email your questions or case studies for the panel to education@mndassociation.org
Time: 11.00am – 12.30pm
Aim: To explore potential equipment solutions to presenting challenges for people living with MND.
Objective: To answer questions commonly asked by health and social care professionals about equipment solutions for people living with MND.
By the end of the session participants will have:
- a more confident awareness of the potential positive impact of appropriate equipment solutions
- an improved understanding of equipment solutions for people living with MND
- an appreciation of emergent and tested practice in adaptations.
Your panel for this webinar is:
- Phillippa Sharpe, Occupational Therapist - equipment, adaptations and complex disability management
- Jenny Rolfe, Occupational Therapist - wheelchairs, postural management, and complex disability management
- Malabika Ghosh, Occupational Therapist - orthotics and posture
Strengthening and improving multidisciplinary care for people with MND - 18 July 2023
Time: 11.00am – 12.30pm
Aim: To highlight the key clinical messages from the world’s largest study examining the lived experience of people with MND - the TONiC-ALS study, which has 36 sites in the UK.
| You said... | We found... |
|---|---|
| We want to improve quality of life and reduce depression for our patients, but this is very hard because of their progressive disability. | Treatable clinical targets like breathlessness, anxiety, and fatigue have greater effects than disability for both quality of life (QoL) and depression. |
| We know that measurement before and after treatment is necessary to assess response, but we don’t have time to re-assess people or the option to bring them back to clinic. | Validated Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) can be used to assess fatigue, spasticity, breathlessness, social isolation, coping, disability, quality of life and other factors. They can be scored quickly and easily and analysed with simple statistics. |
| We believe in multidisciplinary (MDT) care, including psychology throughout the illness and not just near diagnosis, but our managers ask for evidence. | Data supports the necessity of MDT care including psychology, and this is published to provide citations for business cases or other funding requests. |
Objectives: TONiC began by asking people with MND and their clinical teams what needed to be investigated. We have discovered a lot but this webinar will focus on:
By the end of the session participants will:
- know several of the key clinical findings, specifically the role of disability, fatigue, anxiety and breathlessness on quality of life, and the relationship between pain, anxiety, depression and quality of life, as well as the risk factors for social isolation following a diagnosis of MND
- be familiar with TONiC PROMs for clinical use: how to score, how to obtain for free, what’s coming next (capacity to bench mark your data against national norms)
For those doing monitoring, research or audit, understand TONiC PROMs for research use: how to use the nomograms to quickly convert your data to interval level so you can do statistical tests like change scores and averages.
Speaker: Professor Carolyn A Young, Consultant Neurologist – The Walton Centre
Pain Management for motor neurone disease - 28 November 2023
Time: 11.00am – 12.30pm
Aim: To increase understanding of how pain may be experienced in MND and potential methods to treat it.
Objectives:
- to examine current practice for pain management in MND
- to evolve our understanding of pain in MND and how to alleviate it
- to explore current thinking and research about pain management and possible future developments.
By the end of the session participants will have:
- a more confident understanding of where and why pain occurs in MND
- been introduced to options for effective pain management
- an appreciation of emerging research and developments pain management for MND.
Speaker: Dr Rhys Roberts, Consultant Neurologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital – Cambridge
Information and Knowledge Exchanges
Information and Knowledge Exchange events are exclusively for members of the MND Professionals' Community of Practice, a peer led group of health and social care professionals encouraging and supporting the development of good care for people living with, or affected by, MND.
Effective multidisciplinary team working - 28 March 2023
Time: 11.00 am – 1.00 pm
Optional breakout rooms for further discussion will be available after the event until 1:30pm
Multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) are key to the quality of life for people living with MND. You told us you wanted to know more about the different experiences of MDTs: setting them up, how they run day to day and maintaining them. This information and knowledge exchange will explore this important and interesting area.
We have two presentations for this important area from:
- Debbie Quinn, Queen’s Nurse PCCNS, Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Specialist Advisor to the CQC.
Debbie will lay out and consider the ‘gold standards’ for MDT working and, drawing on her own practice, the particular importance of good communication between colleagues. Debbie will end the session with some tips on how you can move things forward within your own teams. - Dorinda Moffatt, Specialist Neuro-Respiratory Physiotherapist/Frailty Therapist, Prospect Hospice.
Dorinda will take a practical and honest look at the challenges and barriers to attaining these gold standards of practice and working within them, using her recent experience of planning for, and establishing, an MND MDT from scratch.
As usual, there will be lots of opportunity to discuss what you have heard and explore how it could be useful to your practice.
Optimising decision making and the use of adaptations and equipment to enhance quality of life of life for people living with MND - 27 June 2023
Time: 11.00 am – 1.00 pm
Optional breakout rooms for further discussion will be available after the event until 1:30pm
The selection and implementation of effective adaptations and equipment help to maintain quality of life for people living with MND. You told us you wanted to know more about choosing the right interventions, and also, importantly, how you as practitioners can best support people living with MND to consider and positively accept potential adjustments. This information and knowledge exchange will tackle these two aspects carefully with the following presentations:
- When and what? Some possible equipment solutions to common challenges for people living with MND - Phillippa Sharpe Specialist MND Occupational Therapist, Oxford MND Care and Research Centre
- “I don’t need or want a hoist”: what refusal could mean and how to support decision making for people living with MND and their carers - Dr Rachel Woolrich, DClinPSy, AFBPsS, Oxford MND Care and Research Centre.
By the end of the session you will have:
- been introduced to some common equipment solutions and the optimal timing for their introduction
- considered how an equipment prescription may be experienced from the patient perspective
- heard a person living with MND describe their thoughts and feelings about equipment they have been given and their experience of accepting it
- explored how to effectively support people in making decisions about equipment solutions
- had the opportunity to reflect on how this learning might impact on your practice.
A conversation with...
The ‘Conversations with...’ series will give you an opportunity to listen to subject matter experts being interviewed on Zoom, using questions submitted by you. They focus on subjects of expressed interest from the professional community, or topical issues, and are run as conversation between a host and subject specialist.
The aim, as with all of our education provision, is to supplement existing health and social care training with MND-specific content to enhance professionals’ understanding of the disease and how to provide the best possible support. In a Conversation with this enhancement is to have specific questions to help develop or clarify practice answered.
No need to book – just drop in using the links provided.
Details of upcoming Conversation with... events coming soon.
Workshops
A workshop is a brief, intensive educational program focussing on techniques and skills delivered to a relatively small group of people. Workshops are usually delivered face to face, but with careful planning could be online. The features of a workshop are that they:
- pass on knowledge and instruction around a specific skill set
- provide significant real time opportunities for participants to practice the skills being taught
- wherever possible will have some form of formal accreditation for the skills being passed on.
We use our MND Association workshops support when a key skill deficit has been identified and it is appropriate for the Association to make a response. The aim, as with all of our education provision, is to supplement existing health and social care training with MND-specific content to enhance professionals’ understanding of the disease and how to provide the best possible support. In a workshop this enhancement is very practical with clear links to practice.
Details of upcoming workshops coming soon.