Published: 17 November, 2011
by TOM FOOT

MEMORIES are never lost but the brain does, often through age or injury, struggle to reclaim them.

Research has found that the simple act of reading to brain-damaged stroke victims can help the restore the mind’s eye.

InterAct Reading Service is a charity that sends professional actors into Camden rehabilitation wards and care centres to read stories to patients.

Chief executive Nirjay Mahindru, a former actor, said: “Imagine the brain as a series of electrical wires. It tries to find the wire to the memory but it sometimes can’t after a stroke.

“The memory is there, it is never deleted. The tendency during the readings is that the person thinks of childhood, and is reminded of their past. That stimulates the brain into finding other memories. This is our key raison d’etre: we are not just trying to be nice people.”

He added: “A stroke patient could have no interaction with anyone for 23 hours in a day and that can lead to depression. Also, people might worry about things like, ‘am I able to remember my son’s name?’ We can help alleviate depression.”

InterAct was set up by theatre director Caroline Smith. She realised, while nursing her brother, a psychiatrist, through a terminal illness, how reading to him was helping his recovery.

Clinical research at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital suggests that the charity’s work helps speed up stroke patients’ recovery. Patient case studies on InterAct’s website reports how they felt the reading service was at times “better than medicine”, or  “good food for the brain”.

But Mr Mahindru said it was struggling to maintain funding since health reforms effectively abolished Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), a key source of income for the charity, and began to transfer funding powers to groups of GPs.

He said: “We had developed relationships with Camden. We have lost a lot of money since they have been abolished. We don’t really know where to apply.”

The service also needs to keep up with a policy shift to move patients out of rehabilitation centres into the community.

Mr Mahindru added: “Ten years ago if I went to see Joe Bloggs in a stroke ward you would also see him there six months later. Now, he would be discharged after six weeks.

“You get the sense there are people that are being lost in all of this, they are becoming socially isolated.

“People are not making a connection with them one year after their stroke. It is having a huge impact on friends and family.”

The InterAct Reading Service will be visiting patients in the Royal Free, Whittington and the Queen Square Neurological hospitals over Christmas following a donation from Bloomsbury-based publisher Souvenir Press.

• For more information visit www.interactreading.org