A Crippling Fate Imagine a life without the ability to walk, that's what my brother deals with everyday. He suffers from a condition called Cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is caused by brain damage before or during birth, resulting in a loss of voluntary muscle control and coordination (Cerebral palsy). This affected my brother's legs making him wheelchair bound for the rest of his life. One may think this was horrible, but with the disease there comes several other complications. When my brother was born he weighed two pounds seven ounces, combine his prematurity plus lack of oxygen and he got the disease. By the age of sixteen he had four major surgeries, including a medial hamstring lengthening. As a result of cerebral palsy his hamstrings were so tight he was unable to move them, this led to him having to have a procedure that would loosen and lengthen them. …show more content…
Doing this procedure relieved my brother's inability to relax his legs, but at the cost of being in extreme pain. The next few months were the hardest he would ever deal with. I can still envision coming home from school and hearing him scream in pain, this crushed me even at the tender age of ten. I may not of understood the severity of what was going on, but I knew that he had endured the worst of it and now was the good part, the part where he would be able to move more freely without agonizing pain. Dealing with these surgeries and the disease caused a ripple effect of how he had to be treated and taken care
42-year old Mandy Sellars is a British woman that was born with very unusual medical condition. While her upper body is completely normal, both her legs never stop growing since birth. It weighed 210 lb or 95 kg. It so heavy that she uses crutches to aid her to roam around. She has undergone surgery on her left leg as it gets amputated and started using a wheelchair, to her surprise, the leg has started growing back.
will have to walk with a cane for the rest of his life because of his
Growing up with a mild case of Cerebral Palsy has allowed me to develop an understanding and appreciation for the importance of diversity. Disability is not always thought of as a form of diversity, but it is the largest minority group in the world. I am interested in attending COSD FULL ACCESS Student Summit because the companies that are attending this summit recognize the importance of recruiting and retaining students with disabilities. I want to work for a company that will value my differences because I know the value of having different voices with different experiences sitting at the leadership table. This summer, I had the opportunity to travel with Vanderbilt University to South Africa and volunteer in a local school. I saw that
In my lifetime, I have been fortunate to have lived and worked in many fascinating places, from Zambia, to Japan, to Iceland to Slovenia—yet none compare to Bishopstown, County Westmeath, Ireland, where I spent several months as a farmhand upon graduating college.
Cerebral Palsy (CP) is brain damage. It cannot be cured, it is not contagious, it is not a disease, and it does not get worse. According to Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, "Cerebral Palsy is a broad term for various nonprogressive disorders of motor function in people, resulting from brain damage around the time of birth. Damage to the brain could occur before, during, or shortly after birth"(“Cerebral”). Since the damage is done during the brain’s formation, and occurs in the part of the brain that controls motor and muscle functions, people with CP might have problems with motor skills, muscle tone, muscle weakness, reflexes, balance, excessive drooling, difficulties swallowing or speaking, shaking, tremors, and
Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a term that encompasses several neurological disorders that permanently affect balance, muscle coordination, and movement. Typically contracted before birth, it affects every part of a child’s ability to function and interact with others. Some infants display only mild forms of CP and are able to function fairly well, attend school and make friends among their peer age group. A diagnosis of CP can have a devastating effect on the parents and siblings, including feelings of guilt over potential causes, and due to sibling frustration over the attention required by a child with CP.
“Pick a partner,” said my 7th grade teacher, as we were about to do a science experiment. Everyone in my class picked their partners, except for Melohn and me. I had no choice but to be partners with her, which I have no problem working with because we’ve known each other since elementary school. The group that has the most questions right gets bonus points. As we were about to start our experiment, one of my classmates whispered, “We’re going to finish faster than you guys.”
Cerebral Palsy is a condition where damage to certain areas of the brain result in loss of muscle control and movement. There are multiple factors that play a role in motor learning. One of these factors will be the primary focus in this paper, this factor is bimanual coordination. The five articles that will be reviewed all focus on bimanual coordination but each either has a different method of application or a specific type of cerebral palsy in the study.
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a neurological disorder that resulted from a defect in the brain before, at birth, or after birth (CDC, 2014). In other words, CP affects body movement and muscles by hindering the muscles from performing regular activity such as walking (Straub & Obrzut, 2009). The common known cause of brain damage during birth is asphyxia, which means lack of oxygen (CDC, 2014). However, new studies suggested that cerebral palsy related to various causes such as viral infections. In addition, CP is divided into congenital and acquired. Congenital CP occurs before or during birth while acquired CP occurs after 28 days of birth. Each type has risk factors attached to it. For instance, congenital CP can affect the premature baby and low weight baby (CDC, 2014). Furthermore, the infected mother with cytomegalovirus (CMV), for instant, can have a baby with congenital cerebral palsy. In contrast, acquired cerebral palsy are caused by bacterial infection, head injury and stroke in case of cerebrovascular damage.
Having been at this special school I have discovered that children with cerebral palsy impairments need special care and people who very patient working that have this disability as others are unable to help themselves at all. Children need special love, parent’s and sibling’s support from their homes as it makes them feel accepted from their families because other children are being abused of what they are. Teachers that are dealing with learners that have the impairment need to be equipped with special needs education in order to cope with the conditions. There should be workshops for parents of these children whereby they will be empowered on how to deal with the conditions of their children.
One of the most common neurological disorders that affects development from birth through adulthood is one that I am very familiar with, cerebral palsy. According to (Hurley et al., 2011) there is an “estimated 800,000 children and adults living with cerebral palsy,” I am one of those adults that were born with cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy affects a person’s development of “movement and posture, causing activity limitations due to disturbances that occur during the development of the fetal or infant brain,” (Hurley et al., 2011). Cerebral palsy is commonly associated with the visual signs like physical affliction these can be in the face, legs or arms affecting one limb or multiple limbs, the most common is the affect it has on muscles
I never would have thought that ninth grade year would be the toughest year of my life. I went from being able to do all kinds of physical activities to being on crutches. I was on crutches two weeks longer than my surgeon expected. Even after the crutches nothing seemed the same. The best way for me to get back to my old self was to attend physical therapy sessions twice a week. Even to this day I can feel a part of me is missing. I would soon begin to get my mobility back as my therapy sessions progressed throughout several weeks.
I have been on crutches for the past ten weeks and won’t be able to walk normally for several more weeks; I never thought that I could yearn so much for something as simple as walking. Not being able to walk has shown me the hardships of disabled millions throughout the world that I had never seen or even thought of before. It shows me how much we take for granted the simple things in life. For example, I never thought that holding something as I walked was such a tremendous privilege, but crutches have proven it to me. I now have to ask someone, usually my mom, to carry something to me. Although she is glad to do it and it is her way of showing love and affection, it feels as if my worth as a human has withered. Moreover, in the relatively short time that I have been disabled, it has seemed to define who I am as a person. Crutches have proven to me that someone is truly judged based upon their appearance before any words are spoken or even before the slightest acknowledgment. Nevertheless, crutches have exposed a whole new world that shows how delicate and fragile life is.
More severe symptoms in children with cerebral palsy may result in basically no muscle control, greatly affecting their lives.” (Cogher, Savage & Smith, 1992)
Most of us cannot imagine their everyday life without physical movement. Once, I had broken my leg and had to stay in a bed for a week, and then I started walking with gypsum for several weeks. I remember this time of my life as one of the most difficult parts. I could not even get up and have a glass of water for myself. But now I realize that broken leg was the consequence of my over-active behavior at that moment and that was only my fault.