When the World Stopped, and Some People Breathed: Mauritians living with neurological disabilities

Mauritius is a small island nation in the Indian Ocean with a population of 1.27 million people and a stroke incidence that increased by 80% between 2009 and 2019. It is also, to our knowledge, the setting of the first qualitative study of Mauritians living with neurological disability. That this hadn't been done before is itself worth pausing on.

This study set out to understand the lived experiences of Mauritians with neurological injuries — stroke, spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury — and their family caregivers, during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 patients and 22 caregivers, in English, French, and Mauritian Creole, between August 2021 and February 2022. A reflexive thematic analysis produced six themes that tell a story not just about a pandemic, but about what life looked like for these families long before one arrived.

The six themes were: caregiver burnout; barriers to treatment; poor social support; geographical barriers; financial burden; and isolation. What became clear, fairly quickly, is that the pandemic did not create these problems. It pressed on wounds that were already there.

Caregiver burnout: "I do everything"

Seventy percent of patients depended on at least one person for daily activities. That person was almost always a family member — a spouse, a parent, a child — who had not signed up for the role of nurse, therapist, and financial provider, but took it on anyway, out of love, out of duty, out of the absence of any alternative. One caregiver described it plainly: "It's as if I do not exist." A 72-year-old father caring for his near-vegetative son said he was very tired, with the age and the pain, but continued — because there was no one else.

During lockdown, caregivers fared worse than patients. Their outlets — the small daily escapes that allowed them to breathe — were gone.

Barriers to treatment and a system that said: accept it

Participants described a pattern of learned helplessness, shaped in part by the healthcare system itself. Patients were repeatedly told there was nothing to be done, that they should accept their condition. Nearly half described treatment as ineffective. Rather than motivating engagement with rehabilitation, this resigned them to it. One patient captured the feeling precisely: "This is the kind of care we get."

During lockdown, the more pressing issue for many was not interrupted appointments — care had already been minimal — but shortages and rising costs of medication. For someone in 10/10 neuropathic pain, confinement is beside the point. The pain is there regardless.

The disability taboo, geographical barriers, and financial strain

Disability in Mauritius carries a social weight. Families described varying degrees of exclusion from friends and community following the onset of injury. Some laughed bitterly when asked about friendship. Infrastructure did not help — broken pavements, absent ramps, doors too narrow for wheelchairs. One patient received dental treatment outside the surgery because his chair could not fit through the door. The financial consequences of injury — lost income, early retirement, the costs of medication and equipment — compounded everything. As one participant described the system: "sinking people like us into a hole [...] not to give us a hand to help us come out of this hole. It is very very very difficult."

Isolation: a double-sided coin

Here is where the findings take an unexpected turn. While 76% of participants reported negative effects from lockdown-related isolation, around a quarter reported improvements — in mood, in cognitive function, in connection. Increased time with family brought more physiotherapy, more conversation, more presence.

For some patients, pre-pandemic life had already been so isolated that lockdown changed very little. For others, having family home continuously was, against all odds, a gain. These are not small findings. They reflect the depth of ordinary isolation these individuals lived with before the world made isolation a collective experience.

What this means for Mauritians living with neurological disabilities

This is the first qualitative study of its kind from Mauritius, and it points clearly toward the need for more — more research, more culturally responsive services, more attention to the caregivers who carry what the system does not. The recommendations are patient-centred and practical: grassroots, community, and national-level strategies to improve accessibility, reduce financial burden, support caregivers, and address the cultural stigma that keeps disability hidden.

The data in this paper came from real conversations, with real people, about lives that are hard. Reporting it accurately is the least it deserves.

Read the full paper: Soll et al., Pan African Medical Journal, October 2025. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12716326/

Come find us at ISPRM 2026 — we'd love to see you there. 📍 Rooms 202–204 📅 Tuesday, May 19, 2026 🕘 17:15 – 17:30

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