Daniel J. Wilson, PhD, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania
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Question: What type of brace would you recommend for a post-polio patient with poor strength in the thigh muscles? We are in New Hampshire, USA.
Answer: As for your patient, I am going to break down my remarks into two sections, depending on some of the characteristics of your patient. Since your email said your patient had muscle weakness in the thigh, I am assuming you mean quadriceps, and perhaps hamstring weakness, but suspect your patient may also have some weakness of hip muscles and possibly even of some muscles in the lower leg.
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Researchers at the University of Washington’s Aging Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, agerrtc@uw.edu
Falling in older adults is a big public health problem. Injuries that result from falling in older adults are serious, life-changing, costly, potentially fatal. In the U.S., deaths from falls is the leading cause of injury-related deaths in adults over the age of 65 (1).
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From the series, Polio Survivors Ask, by Nancy Baldwin Carter, B.A, M.Ed.Psych, from Omaha, Nebraska, is a polio survivor, a writer, and is founder and former director of Nebraska Polio Survivors Association.
Q: A friend who had polio told me that since he uses a cane, people give him more room so he has less fear of being bumped by others. He wishes he used it a few years earlier. Me, too! How can we help people “get over” the fear of looking disabled?
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From the series, Polio Survivors Ask, by Nancy Baldwin Carter, B.A, M.Ed.Psych, from Omaha, Nebraska, is a polio survivor, a writer, and is founder and former director of Nebraska Polio Survivors Association.
Q: I just remodeled my kitchen and found non-slip tile that is called “ADA tile.” The label helped me narrow the possibilities, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good use of “ADA.” What do you think?
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From the series, Polio Survivors Ask, by Nancy Baldwin Carter, B.A, M.Ed.Psych, from Omaha, Nebraska, is a polio survivor, a writer, and is founder and former director of Nebraska Polio Survivors Association.
Q: I’m in the market for either a power chair or a scooter and am trying to make up my mind which would be better for me. I’ve heard there’s a stigma associated with using a power chair rather than a scooter. What’s that about?
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Grace Young
My most shocking revelation was that I really did have a disability. That didn’t happen for almost forty years after I had polio. At age 46 I started working at Kaiser and my supervisor asked me, “Grace, do you consider yourself disabled?” It was the height of affirmative-action consciousness and he needed to identify minority members of his department. But the question felt like a slap in the face. Why would he ask that? I thought about it and finally said, “I guess I am.”
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I. INTRODUCTION
Please understand that consistently using the principles discussed below is important when performing ANY activity. In other words, do not wait to use these principles just when you are in pain, but rather, use the principles all of the time.
Why should you use these principles?
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A few months ago I flew to the east coast for a cruise and needed to take both my scooter and manual wheelchair. The problem was that both “vehicles” had loose parts and I was worried that something would get lost in the baggage compartment during the flight.
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Travel overseas - or anywhere - can be enjoyable, enriching, enlightening, or a complete disaster if your equipment ends up mutilated or at the wrong destination. You should have the adventures, not your wheelchair.
I have flown with a power scooter and a manual wheelchair, and have accompanied others who traveled with power wheelchairs. Air travel affords you less control over the destiny of your equipment than bus or train travel. But knowledge is power, and the more you know about traveling with equipment, the greater your changes of having a problem-free trip.
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