A WIDE concept
Usual for Me™
What is normal for me may not be normal for you. If we want to observe meaningful change, it has to be relevant to the individual.
Difference can be usual
A person may have acquired a lifetime of difference through injury, illness, pain, disability, ageing, work, habit or simply the way they have learned to move. That difference may be entirely usual for them.
So the useful question is not whether somebody moves normally. It is whether they are still moving in the way that is usual for them.
Who it may be for
Usual for Me™ may be useful wherever noticing change matters, particularly in care, rehabilitation and long term support. It is intended for people whose function may change through illness, ageing, disability, recovery or changing health, and for the families, carers and professionals trying to understand what those changes mean.
Ordinary movement can tell us a lot
Take something as simple as reaching for a cup while sitting. It may happen several times a day without becoming a test or an instructed movement.
WIDE can observe what happens before the reach, how the person organises the movement, how they return and how they settle afterwards. Repeated over time, that begins to build a picture of the person’s own movement envelope, including the variation that is usual for them.
The movement does not begin when the hand leaves the chair and it does not finish when the cup is put down.
Existing start → preparation → reach → cup interaction → return → settle → new start
Change may appear before failure
The cup may still be reached successfully while the way the movement is organised begins to change. Preparation may alter, the movement may become more restricted, different parts of the body may contribute, or the person may return and settle differently.
None of that tells us why the movement changed. It may simply tell us that something familiar is no longer behaving in quite the same way for this person.
Notice first. Interpret later.
WIDE does not need to diagnose the reason for a change. Its role can be much simpler: preserve what is usual for the individual, notice when ordinary function begins to differ, and make that change visible through time.
The meaning of that change belongs with the people who know the person and understand the wider context.
Usual for Me™ is being developed by WIDE as a way of understanding change from the individual, not difference from everybody else.