Articles Tagged ‘Disability’
When Max Burt, 45, received massive head injuries after a freak collision with an out-of-control fire engine 10 years ago, he was left paralysed on his left side and a permanent wheelchair user. The head injury also left him deaf in one ear, with uncontrollable tremors, and severe sight and speech impairments.
Since his accident, Max has learned that, to achieve full inclusion of disabled people in society, 2 barriers need to be overcome: firstly, physical, and secondly, the barriers in peoples’ minds. This has led Max to become involved with many disability-related organisations, in an attempt to overcome real obstacles and prejudices.
Max’s fitness regime (using a reclining exercise cycle) led him to the idea of the Everything Is Possible In …
Read all of Max Burt and his 714 mile marathon
Pablo is 10 years old and lives with his parents and two younger brothers in north-west London. He attends a local school and goes swimming once a week at the local leisure centre.
Pablo was clinically diagnosed with infantile epilepsy at an early age and this has led to his severe developmental delay. He is unable to weight bear or walk without specialist equipment or assistance and because he has no speech, he communicates by making noises, eye pointing and touch. Pablo is also prone to frequent and repeated infections due to a blood disorder.
To enable Pablo and his family to go out more and access parks and …
Read all of Pablo’s Story
Amelia is 4 years old and lives in the centre of Exeter. She really loves arts and 
crafts, playing with her friends, horse riding and making people laugh.
In 2007 Amelia was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type II. This neuromuscular condition affects people in different ways. Amelia was able to walk on her own until she was 18 months old, when her condition deteriorated and she now needs a wheelchair to move around independently.
In June 2009 Amelia was given her ‘Koala’ Permobil powered wheelchair, through the support of The Priority Trust. As soon as she received the chair, she worked out the controls and just got on with using …
Read all of Amelia’s Story
Hanna lives with her Mum and Dad in Chipping Ongar, Essex. Like other 6-year-old girls she loves to watch television, particularly CBeebies and DVDs such as Cinderella. Chloe also loves to be active and enjoys dancing and swimming.
Hanna was born with Cerebral Palsy and while she has some use of her hands and arms and can feed herself she cannot mobilise unaided unless she is crawling and this she can do for short distances.
She loves her mainstream school but as she has got older it has become more difficult for her to join in and feel involved with the other non-disabled children in her class. Hanna even told …
Read all of Hanna and her trike
Until recently, Amy was reliant on her manual wheelchair which she used to self-propel. However, Amy was not able to push herself over long distances and Amy and her family realised that her manual wheelchair would not allow her to enjoy the same level of independence as her peers when she started secondary school.
Amy’s family approached their local wheelchair service but they were unable to provide Amy with a powered indoor/outdoor wheelchair which would meet her needs.
For Amy to live an independent and active life she needed a wheelchair that met her social, educational and clinical needs. Through the support of The Priority Trust Amy has recently received an …
Read all of Amy’s wheelchair
It isn’t just powered wheelchairs which can make a massive difference to disabled children and their families. There are many types of mobility equipment that are not available through the NHS because of funding criteria which don’t consider all a child’s recreational needs. Simple pieces of equipment such as buggies can provide a childhood of fun and enjoyment by allowing children to enjoy normal family outings and everyday activities which most of us take for granted.
Codie is 6-year-old is a little girl, with Cerebral Palsy, who received a buggy in March 2009 through the fantastic support of the Priority Trust.
Codie’s Mum had applied to Whizz-Kidz for a buggy so …
Read all of Codie’s Buggy
So Im in the shower thinking of what to blog today. I realised it has been a few days and while singing along to Jack Johnson I thought I have been rather sick/car update orientated for the past 3 decades it feels, so I wanted a different angle. For those who do not know a thing called christmas is coming so a blog around this made sense. I got to thinking about Mr.Claus and his reindeers and how Rudolph had a weird nose (it was red for any morons out there). Yet despite this he triumphed and led that god damned sleigh with all his heart making christmas happen. This seemed to fit with a blog because despite being an …
Read all of If Rudolph was classified as disabled?
In the style of Jess from the Fast show – “today I will mostly be talking about, the past”!
My grandpa, absolute legend with technology, dug out these 3 newspaper cuttings at my request from many moons ago to enable me to write this blog (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martyn_sibley/sets/72157622856332857/). He is a legend as not many people of his age, let alone full-stop, could scan, save, upload and email this so perfectly. Thanks Gramps J
I’ll start with the picture of me in my new wheelchair pushing the football up the alley-way beside our old bungalow. This came off the back of everyone in my village and further afield hearing that I needed a new wheelchair costing £3,000 of which my parents didn’t happen …
Read all of Asking for help, getting help and showing what can be done!
What a 24 hours! I headed from my flat last night to come to mums for the hospital appointment this morning. I left at 19.30 to let David help me shower and get dinner and then mum would just have to help me to bed, before we got up and headed to hospital and Beata arrived. Unfortunately Beata had to cover her other employer so good old mum stepped in to sort me until Chris starts Sunday.
So I headed towards the M11 with radio and heater on. 10 minutes later I realised I was cold and my hands were going into that weak claw they do in winter. With the new car, the accelerator is a little tougher but also …
Read all of What a nightmare journey!
I decided to do a typical style of update in terms of daily happenings but in an overarching manner. It has been known the car and my health have been under par for a while. The update of the moment is I am being admitted to the respiratory unit in hospital tomorrow to x-ray my bad lung and run some tests to see why I am still not clearing the infection. I am ok in myself but a little fed up with this and just want to be better, fingers crossed we get things moving tomorrow.
The broader area I want to discuss is easier with the back story. Those who have read my blogs and know me personally will know …
Read all of Knowing your limits
