The path to recovery remains unclear as dyspraxia makes itself known one day and not the next. Sheer determination and a hope for the future helps participants continue to try to reclaim the person they were prior to the dyspraxia. Health professionals can help by understanding what people with dyspraxia experience, supporting their hopefulness of improvement and building up knowledge of the functional and compensatory strategies they devise to support participation in daily activities.

Little is known of the day-to-day experience of living with motor neurone disease from the perspective of those who have it, apart from what can be found in personal accounts such as those published on web pages. In this study, which was informed by phenomenology, seven people living in an urban setting in New Zealand were asked to describe their experiences. This report focuses on the study findings that related specifically to disruption to occupation. It describes how early changes in occupational performance alerted the participants to the fact that something was wrong. The findings also showed the pervasive impact of an awkward and unreliable body on participation in occupations that gave meaning to life, expressed identity and filled time. Issues of how the family's world was changed, the introduction of assistive devices into their homes and the betrayal of trust were also powerfully evident in participants' stories. Although the findings are broadly consistent with those of previous studies, the disruption to occupation and the consequent role losses are new findings. Further research into the impact of the loss of participation in occupation, the ways in which people are perceived when occupations are disrupted and the experience of having occupations taken away prematurely is recommended.

In this article, we explore the nature of good postnatal care through a hermeneutic unpacking of the notion of tact, drawing on the philosophical writings of Heidegger, Gadamer, and van Manen. The tactful encounters considered were from a hermeneutic research study within a small, rural birthing center in New Zealand. Insights drawn from the analysis were as follows: the openness of listening, watching and being attuned that builds a positive mode of engagement, recognizing that the distance the woman needs from her nurse/midwife is a call of tact, that tact is underpinned by a spirit of care, within tact there are moods and tact might require firmness, and that all of these factors come together to build trust. We conclude that the attunement of tact requires that the staff member has time to spend with a woman, enough energy to engage, and a spirit of care. Women know that tactful practice builds their confidence and affects their mothering experience. Tact cannot be assumed; it needs to be nurtured and sheltered.

We try to come to terms with our assumptions not to forget them again, but rather to hold them deliberately at bay and even to turn this knowledge against itself revealing its concealing nature. (Van Manen, 1990, p. 47)

This interpretive study aimed to shed light on the experience of living with motor neurone disease (MND). Guided by phenomenological methodology, it involved semi-structured interviews with 4 women and 3 men diagnosed with MND, living in their own home in a major city in New Zealand. Three themes emerged; the wobbly body, doing and being, and changed world — changed future. The themes reveal the impact of living with a body that cannot follow commands and is increasingly unreliable, of losing the capacity to engage in valued activities, and the complexity of receiving care from family members and health-care workers. Implications include the need to further support individual’s attempts to stay active, provide accurate and consistent information, minimize the number of health-care workers involved with individual clients, and to actively monitor whether care is delivered as contracted.