Don’t Let Disability Dissuade Your Efforts to Lead A Normal Life

Wonderful to Watch a Differently-abled Mom Take her Infant for a Ride!

International Day of Persons with Disability (Dec 3rd 2018)

Sign Language Greatly Assists Deaf People to Express themselves

Disabled people are looked down with empathy. There are not many great changes in terms of treating people with disability. People normally associate disability with failure, dependency and an inability to perform tasks and hence, feel sorry for them and sympathize with them greatly. Contrarily, surveys report that disabled people account for a better quality of life than the rest of the population.
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A Detour from Normal Life
Disabilities can impede normal daily activities which are trivial for others. This does not make it a disease or sickness and neither does the affected person suffer from restricted abilities-he/she can work, play and enjoy a healthy life with the help of mobility aids and assistive devices that make daily activities easier to perform. A lack of such devices and aids makes the disabled person over-dependent on his/her family members which obstructs both, the disabled person and the family member from leading a socially active and an economically safe life. We cannot refute the fact that disabled people have several of their needs unmet as support services are not given primary importance in several countries worldwide which makes them rely on family members for assistance. By support services I mean:

1. A personal assistant can help a wheelchair-dependent person move around, travel to work and more. There are also options for self-propelled wheelchairs which makes the disabled person independent, but this comes at a fancy price that cannot be afforded by many
2. Individuals with many different impairments or older persons too may require additional assistance for a good quality of life at home. Such individuals do better in a community with the help of outside support where they can work or take part in events. This also brings down dependency on family members to a great extent.
3. Learning the sign language is open to deaf people worldwide but a sign-language interpreter can help a deaf person to work in a professional environment and succeed in life.
   
   

A sad but true fact, assistance to disabled people comes mostly from the family or social networks. The governments must make provisions for enabling the disabled person lead a better life by providing him/her with:

1. Pets such as dogs that can guide the visually impaired or blind person
2. Provision in the classroom for assisting a child with disability or facilitating personal support in the workplace
3. Caregivers must be given a break to break their monotony of caretaking and disabled people must also be given short breaks from their routine lifestyle to raise the spirit and mental well-being
4. Just like the homes for the elderly that have cropped up everywhere not because all children have abandoned their parents but also because many elderly people are unable to do work on their own while their children live in another city or country, homes for the disabled can also be incorporated
5. Community support must be extended to assist with taking care of the disabled person, seeing to his/her household needs, leisure and promoting community participation.
   
   

People with disability can lead a healthy, safe and independent life by following simple things:

Healthy Life: First and foremost, one must understand that disability does not stop a person from leading a healthy and active life. All it requires are the right information and method to make healthy choices and prevent illnesses. A disabled person must understand that any health problems (such as depression, pain or certain diseases that occur as side effects of the disease) related to his/her disability can be treated. It is understandable that disabled people have a harder time becoming healthy and staying fit compared to those without any disability. There are a few guidelines that can help these people live a healthy life:

1. Be physically active. If you are stuck with the wheelchair, you cannot get up and run but maybe you can go for physiotherapy or do exercises for your upper body that can help you stay flexible. An expert in exercise who understands about different body needs and conditions can help a disabled person to pursue the set of exercises/activity that best suits him/her
2. Eat a well-balanced meal that contains all the key nutrients. Maintaining recommended portions is extremely vital here as some disabled people cannot pursue exercises and eating in unlimited portions paves way for different diseases to attack the body. This can be rightly done with the assistance of registered dietitian nutritionists at www.firsteatright.com who possess expertise in planning diets for different diseases, conditions and health problems.
3. Use antibiotics and medicines only when needed. Don’t pop in a painkiller every time when you feel the slightest tint of pain. This might lead to antibiotic resistance, increase chronic pain as years pass by and affect quality of life
4. Be around family and friends. Don’t detach yourself from the society fearing differentiation. The more you isolate yourself from others the likelier you are to succumb to depression and stress. Initially, your friends might feel a bit uneasy in your presence not because they look at you as a burden but only because they feel sad for you. But as time goes by, they start accepting you as you are, and the environment becomes calmer and more relaxed.
5. Use assistive technology (AT), when possible. Functioning with an AT increases independence and makes daily living easier through use of aids for communication, travel, work and social participation. You can call a simple magnifying glass as well as a tech-rich device such as a computer that talks and helps someone communicate as an AT. Even wheelchairs, walkers and two-wheelers with specially fit extra wheels are mobility aids that can be used by people with physical disability.
   
   

A Family Affair
A normal life is very difficult for a person with difficult and so is for the person who cares for the disabled person. In fact, it affects the entire family as it puts the families in abundant stress, emotional, physical and financial too. Psychologists and counselling people can offer support and help in dealing with the challenges of living with disability or taking care of someone with a disability. 

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