Making Connections

Moorong Spinal Unit team

Annalisa Dezarnaulds

Annalisa has worked as the Clinical Psychologist at the Moorong Spinal Unit on a part time basis since 2000. In January 2003, she became the first full-time Clinical Psychologist to be employed in a Spinal Rehabilitation unit in Australia. Her background is varied, working with both adults and children with varied psychological problems in various settings such as hospitals and community, drug and alcohol and unemployment services

More recently her work with spinal clients has helped develop her interest in raising the profile of psychologists and the benefits of psychological intervention as a necessary and important part of spinal rehabilitation. She aims to continually improve psychological services available to clients during their acute, rehabilitation phase and following discharge. She sees her role as continually emphasising and educating consumers, families, staff and GP’s about the psychological sequelae post spinal cord injury and developing appropriate management. Her current research interests are in the management of neuropathic pain using cognitive behavioural therapy. She is currently collaborating with the Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney Pain Clinic to modify the ADPAPT Pain Program for an in patient setting.

Ann Thompson

Ann is an Occupational Therapist working at Moorong Spinal Unit. She has been in the senior OT position for 12 months and before this was the senior OT at the Prince Henry Hospital spinal unit for 6 years (now incorporated in the Prince of Wales hospital) .She has worked in both the acute and rehabilitation spinal injuries areas and worked for 10 years in the community setting as a Paediatric Occupational Therapist.

Ann has worked with people diagnosed with paraplegia and quadriplegia and in addition has a lot of social contact with spinal injured people, including scuba diving.

Kelvin Smith

Kel Smith is one of five recreation staff at RRCS and has worked as the at Moorong Spinal Unit for the last 9 years. The role at Moorong involves working with people from a variety of backgrounds who invariably have a broad range of recreation/leisure interests and abilities. The focus is :

• Individual recreation and leisure goals – assessing individual interests, lifestyle, abilities and working with people to develop the skills, knowledge and confidence to participate in their chosen recreation interests in the community. Many people post injury/illness have limited awareness of their recreation/leisure options and can lose focus on abilities and the potential for a satisfying and rewarding lifestyle. Client recreation activities at Moorong have involved participation in a wide array of arts, music, sports, social and other recreation pursuits – the focus is on ability!
• Community recreation/social activities – including skills training on public transport (bus, train,ferry) with assistance from OT staff.
• Community wheelchair skills training - with the assistance of physiotherapy staff on basic skills training, the recreation role is to assist people learning wheelchair skills in community situations including advanced skills such as steps, gutters, escalators, etc.
  

Kate Jones

Kate Jones has been a Social Worker at Moorong Spinal Unit since 2001. She has also been married to a person with a spinal cord injury for 5 years. Kate's main area of work is to support clients and family members during rehabilitation as they adjust to the changes after spinal cord injury, and to assist them as they prepare for discharge home. Some of the issues she and other social workers attend to at Moorong include grief and loss, role changes, adjustment, accommodation, funding for personal care, financial support and community services. 

Joanne Glinsky

Joanne is the Senior physiotherapist at Moorong Spinal Unit. She has a BA Applied Science (Physiotherapy) and an  MA Health Science (Neurological Physiotherapy).