Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Aging with a Physical Disability (2011) Muscular Strengthening is one of the most common recommendations of physical medicine and rehabilitation for people with PPS struggling with symptoms. However, historically, any type of exercise was once thought to be bad for people with neuromuscular diseases (such as muscular dystrophy, post-polio syndrome, cerebral palsy, etc.). …
Shared peer advice from polio survivors about what works for them.
Share your solution:
News about people who have made significant contributions to the disability community.
Share your story:
An Overview of Energy Conservation
Any person who has a disability uses more energy than a nondisabled person to perform basic activities of daily living (ADL), because tasks are often performed using movement patterns that are not meant to be used. The process of using relatively nondisabled body parts to compensate for muscles that are weak or paralyzed saps energy. If a polio survivor attempts …
Underventilation
New breathing problems in aging polio survivors can be insidious and often not recognized by either polio survivors or health care professionals. Individuals who used an iron lung, or barely escaped one, during the acute phase should be aware of potential problems to avoid underventilation and possible respiratory failure. Those survivors who did not need ventilatory assistance during the acute …
Pulmonary Function Tests
Pulmonary function testing can be done in a pulmonary function laboratory. Simpler tests can also be done in a physician’s office or in the home. Testing most often is used to identify airflow abnormality, reduced lung volume (restrictive abnormality), diffusing capacity changes (as in interstitial disease), and blood gas abnormality (too much carbon dioxide, too little oxygenation). The following tests …
Polio’s Effects
GENERAL INFORMATION LETTER FOR POLIO SURVIVORS Why are “old polios” who were stable for years now losing function? What should they do about it? Jacquelin Perry, MD, DSc (Hon), Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Downey, California The basic problem is that polio destroyed some of the nerve cells that activate the muscles. To the extent possible, the neurological system …
Aging
Due to recent advances in medical rehabilitation, emergency medicine, and consumer education, for the first time in history persons with significant disabilities, like their nondisabled counterparts before them, are surviving long enough to experience both the rewards and challenges of mid- to later-life (Ansello & Eustis, 1992). Aging with polio has not come without its costs. In exchange for the …
Research – Is It For You?
Roberta Simon, RN, Illinois Research is an important aspect for the medical community in dealing with any health difficulty that has no previous history of known causes or treatments. Unfortunately, as we are all aware, post-polio syndrome falls into this category. Since many of us have been or will in the future be asked to participate in research, I think …
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol was adopted on 13 December 2006 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and was opened for signature on 30 March 2007. The Convention entered into force on 3 May 2008. The Convention marks a “paradigm shift” in attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. The …
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (PL 101-336), signed by President George H. W. Bush on July 26, 1990, is first and foremost a civil rights law that establishes a clear and comprehensive prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability. For purposes of the ADA, a “disability” means a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or …
Multicenter, Multi-country Study Underway (2015)
Joan L. Headley, Executive Director, Post-Polio Health International Typical of most studies, the name of the most recently announced study related to post-polio syndrome is long but exactingly descriptive: A Multicenter, Prospective, Randomized, Placebo-controlled, Double-blind, Parallel-Group Clinical Trial to Assess the Efficacy and Safety of Immune Globulin Intravenous (Human) Flebogamma® 5% DIF in Patients with Post-Polio Syndrome. The main purpose of the study …