Kind Of Disability Research Articles

‘Community members aren’t aware that assistance animals come in all shapes and sizes, and help people with all kinds of disabilities’ – Experiences of using assistance animals within community living in Australia

Purpose This study aimed to investigate: (1) the characteristics of people using, or had previously used, assistance animals within community living in Australia; (2) positive and/or negative experiences of these users; and (3) educational resources that may aid public awareness. Materials and methods An online survey was distributed through Australian assistance animal organisations and social media channels. Past/current assistance animal users (n = 112) responded to questions on demographic and types of animal supports used, experience of assistance animal use, community attitudes experienced, and perspectives about the need for public education. Data were analysed with descriptive and inferential statistics. Content analysis provided additional insights of the positive and/or negative experiences assistance animal users had faced. Results Nearly all participants used an assistance dog (n = 111), and 37 (33%) used the animal for more than one type of support. Seventy percent reported experiencing both positive and negative community attitudes/reactions. Length of time of having an assistance animal was associated with significantly higher prevalence of positive attitudes/reactions, whilst users who received medical support from the animal tended to experience more negative community attitudes/reactions than other users. The majority (90%) agreed that more public education is needed regarding assistance animal public access rights. Conclusions This study is the first in Australia to undertake a large-scale survey of assistance animal users with a range of disability types. It highlights the benefits and challenges of assistance animals, which could be useful to consider when determining the most appropriate support for an individual. Implications for Rehabilitation There are a range of possible benefits, but also challenges, in the use of assistance animals that should be considered when a person with disability or health conditions, or people advising them, are determining if an animal is the most appropriate support. Assistance animals can provide multiple types of support to one user, so could offer a potential cost-benefit beyond traditional assistive devices or other types of support. To ensure better inclusion of assistance animal users, public education is needed to promote community awareness of the types of animals that meet the definition of an ‘assistance animal’, and thus have public access rights. In Australia, a nationally consistent government approach to the regulation, accreditation and funding of assistance animals should be established with the aim to address the current fragmented or unfair investment approach and/or discrimination experienced by some individuals.

Paediatric surgical conditions in Malawi - A cross-sectional nationwide household survey.

Untreated surgical conditions may lead to lifelong disability in children. Treating children with surgical conditions may reduce long-term effects of morbidity and disability. Unfortunately, low- and middle-income countries have limited resources for paediatric surgical care. Malawi, for example, has very few paediatric surgeons. There are also significantly inadequate infrastructures and personnel to treat these children. In order to strengthen resources that could provide such services, we need to begin by quantifying the need. To estimate the approximate prevalence of surgical conditions among children in Malawi, to describe the anatomical locations and diagnoses of the conditions and the presence of injuries. A cross-sectional, nationwide survey of surgical needs was performed in 28 of 29 districts of Malawi. Villages, households and household members were randomly selected. A total of 1487 households were visited and 2960 persons were interviewed. This paper is a sub analysis of the children in the dataset. Information was obtained from 255 living children and inquiry from household respondents for the 255 children who had died in the past year. The interviews were conducted by medical students over a 60-day period, and the validated SOSAS tool was used for data collection. There were 67 out of 255 (26.3%) total children living with a surgical condition at the time of the study, with most of the conditions located in the extremities. Half of the children lived with problems due to injuries. Traffic accidents were the most common cause. Two-thirds of the children living with a surgical condition had some kind of disability, and one-third of them were grossly disabled. There were 255 total deceased children, with 34 who died from a surgical condition. The most prevalent causes of death were congenital anomalies of the abdomen, groin and genital region. An extrapolation of the 26% of children found to be living with a surgical condition indicates that there could be 2 million children living with a condition that needs surgical consultation or treatment in Malawi. Congenital anomalies cause significant numbers of deaths among Malawian children. Children living with surgical conditions had disorders in their extremities, causing severe disability. Many of these disorders could have been corrected by surgical care.

A web browsing interface for people with severe speech and motor impairment

Purpose The Web has become an indispensable medium used by people across the world for education, information, entertainment, social interaction as well as for various daily activities involving shopping and employment-related tasks. It is therefore becoming increasingly essential that the Web must be accessible to all people to provide equal access and equal opportunity. This is specifically more important for people with various kind of disabilities. Several initiatives such as development of Web accessibility guidelines, tools and technologies have been undertaken to make the Web usable for people with different disabilities. However, only a handful of them are aimed at people with Severe Speech and Motor Impairment (SSMI). This paper aims to present a Web browsing interface for people with severe speech and motor impairment. Design/methodology/approach The browser allows easy dissemination of information through World Wide Web for people with SSMI. The browser is augmented with both automatic as well as manual scanning mechanisms through which a motor disorder person can access the browser graphical user interface (GUI). Further, the browser provides an intelligent content scanning mechanism through which the Web contents can be accessed with less time and cognitive effort. Along with the desktop version, WebSanyog is successfully ported on Android-based tablets to make the system portable. Findings The system has been exhaustively field tested by people with SSMI. The browser has been deployed at the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy (IICP), Kolkata. The performance of the browser has been measured in terms of three parameters: The Task execution time (TET); Error rates analysis (ER); and Overall usability score by the subject. The evaluation results suggests that the proposed Web browsing interface is effective in terms of task execution time, cognitive effort and overall user satisfaction. Originality/value The browser GUI is integrated with an automatic scanning mechanism as an alternate way to access and navigate through Web pages, instead of using keyboard and mouse. The browser provides novel content access mechanisms that makes navigating through Web page contents like links, images and embedded videos easier and faster. To facilitate text entry, the browser provides two different options, namely, the predictive virtual scanning keyboard and a novel icon-based query entry scheme that allows generating search queries through the selection of multiple icons.

Methods for Estimating Avoidable Costs of Excessive Alcohol Consumption.

Background: Alcohol is a risk factor with serious consequences for society and individuals. This study aims to present methods and approaches that might be used to estimate the costs related to excessive alcohol consumption. It emphasizes the need for general methods and approaches that are easily applicable, because the level of digitalization and data availability vary across regions. The lack of data makes many methods inapplicable and useless. The ease of applicability will help to make cost-of-illness studies and their results comparable globally. Methods: This study is based on data from the Czech Republic in 2017. Drinking alcohol results in costs of healthcare, social care, law enforcement, and administrative costs of public authorities. To quantify the cost of drinking in the Czech Republic, the top-down approach, bottom-up approach, human capital approach and attributable fractions were used. Results: In 2017, the cost related to alcohol was estimated at 0.66% of the national GDP. Lost productivity represented 54.45% of total cost related to alcohol. All cost related to alcohol is considered to be avoidable. Conclusions: The methods and approaches applied to estimate the cost of disease or any other health issue should be generalized regarding the availability of data and specifics of provided services to people who are addicted or have any kind of disability.

The Role of Computed Tomography in Management of Minor Head Injury

Trauma is the main reason of death and various kinds of disability in pediatric population. Minor head injury has been described as a trauma that lead to physiological disorder of brain function and the symptoms may include altered in mental status that may be or may not be associated with loss of consciousness. furthermore, the expression (concussion) has been sometimes used to refer to the same cases. in general, minor head injury case is diagnosis of exclusion and may be possible to achieve final diagnosis after adequate observation and perform appropriate imaging studies [1].

Specialised Training, Courage and Commitment of the People with Disability Brings Positive Results: Examples from India and Nepal

The Census data of 2011 report that out of 121 crore total population in India, about 2.68 crore persons are living with disability. It constitutes nearly 2.21% of the total population of India. Similarly, in Nepal, the Census in 2011 reported that approximately 2% (513,321) of the total population of Nepal has ‘some kind of disability’. According to the World Health Organization, disability has three dimensions: impairment in a person’s body, structure or function or mental functioning; examples of impairments include loss of a limb, loss of vision or memory, also limitation of activity, such as difficulty in seeing, hearing, walking or problem-solving. Countries around the world are working hard to give better opportunity and changes to make life independent for a person with disability. However, the reality is that discrimination persists in the society. One of the studies1 (Selvi Narayanan, Faculty of Business, Asia Metropolitan University) reveals that discrimination against the disability is more pervasive and more systematic and can present challenges in getting important documents such as voter IDs and driving licenses. The study reveals that the discrimination stems from a lack of understanding of the needs of a person with a disability. Despite all these challenges, people with disabilities are moving forward and doing excellent in their career and education.

Intelligent Monitoring Platform to Evaluate the Overall State of People with Neurological Disorders

The percentage of people around the world who are living with some kind of disability or disorder has increased in recent years and continues to rise due to the aging of the population and the increase in chronic health disorders. People with disabilities find problems in performing some of the activities of daily life, such as working, attending school, or participating in social and recreational events. Neurological disorders such as epilepsy, learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, or Alzheimer’s, are among the main diseases that affect a large number of this population. However, thanks to the assistive technologies (AT), these people can improve their performance in some of the obstacles presented by their disorders. This paper presents a new system that aims to help people with neurological disorders providing useful information about their pathologies. This novelty system consists of a platform where the physiological and environmental data acquisition, the feature engineering, and the machine learning algorithms are combined to generate customs predictive models that help the user. Finally, to demonstrate the use of the system and the working methodology employed in the platform, a simple example case is presented. This example case carries out an experimentation that presents a user without neurological problems that shows the versatility of the platform and validates that it is possible to get useful information that can feed an intelligent algorithm.

Comprehensive rehabilitation treatment for sub-acute COVID-19 patients: an observational study.

COVID-19 is a respiratory infection, but it should be considered as a systemic illness with increasing interest on the survivors' sequelae and their management. Considering multi-organ disabilities, a comprehensive rehabilitation provided in sub-acute phase could be considered a suitable setting for these patients. The aim of this article was to report the features and rehabilitative outcomes of patients requiring rehabilitation due to disabilities related to severe COVID-19 infection. Longitudinal Observational Study. Department of Rehabilitation in General Hospital. Patients showing multiple disabilities due to severe COVID-19 infection. Thirty-nine consecutive patients were admitted to a rehabilitation ward transferred from ICU or Medical wards. Barthel Index (BI) and Functional Ambulation Categories (FAC) were scored as disabilities measures. Data regarding comorbidity, rehabilitation course, swabs, procedures in acute phase, non-respiratory manifestations, dysphagia, mental confusion, PaO2/FiO2, oxygen supplementation have been collected to admission and discharge. For all patients a comprehensive rehabilitation treatment have been provided. Functional outcome is good with a statistically significant improvement in BI and FAC scores. Thirty-eight patients were discharged at their home. Mean lenght of stay (LOS) in acute wards was 46 days. Mean LOS in rehabilitation was 20 day. Eleven patients still had tracheostomy at admission, none at discharge and all dysphagic patients recovered a normal oral feeding. The change in PaO2/FiO2 and the reduction of the oxygen supplementation testify a good recovery of pulmonary function. Our results showed a consistent recovery with little caregiver burden at discharge. Fast relocation from ICU makes beds available which are very valuable during pandemic. Comprehensive rehabilitation treatment provided in sub-acute phase for patients still positive for SARS-CoV-2, would be desirable as it seems to be an effective setting. In this setting a strong medical assistance must be ensured. The activation of comprehensive rehabilitation settings able to assist sub-acute patients still positive would be desirable as it could be a very efficient Healthcare Systems answer to the catastrophic pandemic, decompressing acute hospital as well. Furthermore, contagious patients with swabs positivity affected by other kind of disabilities (i.e. Stroke, Femur Fracture) can be treated avoiding to lose the early rehabilitation.

Barriers in access to healthcare for women with disabilities: a systematic review in qualitative studies

BackgroundStudies show that different socio-economic and structural factors can limit access to healthcare for women with disabilities. The aim of the current study was to review barriers in access to healthcare services for women with disabilities (WWD) internationally.MethodsWe conducted a systematic review of relevant qualitative articles in PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases from January 2009 to December 2017. The search strategy was based on two main topics: (1) access to healthcare; and (2) disability. In this review, women (older than 18) with different kinds of disabilities (physical, sensory and intellectual disabilities) were included. Studies were excluded if they were not peer-reviewed, and had a focus on men with disabilities.ResultsTwenty four articles met the inclusion criteria for the final review. In each study, participants noted various barriers to accessing healthcare. Findings revealed that WWD faced different sociocultural (erroneous assumptions, negative attitudes, being ignored, being judged, violence, abuse, insult, impoliteness, and low health literacy), financial (poverty, unemployment, high transportation costs) and structural (lack of insurance coverage, inaccessible equipment and transportation facilities, lack of knowledge, lack of information, lack of transparency, and communicative problems) factors which impacted their access healthcare.ConclusionsHealthcare systems need to train the healthcare workforce to respect WWD, pay attention to their preferences and choices, provide non-discriminatory and respectful treatment, and address stigmatizing attitudinal towards WWD. In addition, families and communities need to participate in advocacy efforts to promote WWD’s access to health care.

Geriatric population in India: Demography, vulnerabilities, and healthcare challenges.

Global pandemic due to corona virus disease (COVID-19) has exposed vulnerabilities of the geriatric population all over the world. India has been adding progressively increasing number of elderly to its population. This is happening with increasing life expectancy and decreasing mortality. In comparison to children, the population as well as deaths in elderly are rising with changing demography. The elderly population has its own vulnerabilities based on education, socioeconomic condition, gender, place of residence etc. They are affected by various non-communicable diseases which form predominant cause of morbidity and mortality like cardiovascular diseases, stroke, cancer, respiratory illnesses etc. The elderly also contribute to various kinds of disabilities like movement, vision, hearing and in many cases multiple disabilities. They are also more vulnerable to mental health problems and cognitive impairment. The article also suggests a way forward in dealing with rising geriatric age group and its associated problems. The programs supporting this population are largely scattered which needs to be consolidated to include social security, pension and food security along with health benefits. The approach to health care of the elderly needs a comprehensive strategy instead of the present fragmented approach where different disease based programs for non-communicable diseases, cancer and mental health cater to specific health issues of the elderly. Greater awareness, training and skill building in geriatric health for primary care physicians need focus and energy. Prioritizing training and research in this field including the need for more geriatricians has been highlighted.

Stavovi roditelja dece tipičnog razvoja prema inkluziji dece sa smetnjama u razvoju

Introduction. Successful implementation of inclusive education, among other things, depends on the attitudes of the participants in the process itself. Although teachers are considered a key factor in the implementation of inclusion, the role of parents should not be neglected. Objective. The main goal of the paper was to examine the attitudes of parents of typically developing children towards the inclusion of children with disabilities, and to examine the impact of gender, level of education, place of residence, and age of the child on parents' attitudes. Parents' opinions on the impact of the type of developmental disabilities on their children's education were also examined. Methods. The research sample consisted of 293 parents of typically developing children from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Parents' attitudes were examined by the Survey of Parents' Attitudes towards Inclusion (SPATI). Results. Parents of typically developing children expressed positive attitudes towards the inclusion of children with disabilities. Their attitudes were not affected by gender, level of education, place of residence, and age of the child. They expressed the most positive attitude towards the inclusion of children with sensory impairments (hearing, vision) and children with moderate or mild intellectual disabilities, while their attitude towards the inclusion of children with severe developmental disabilities (autism, severe intellectual disabilities) was less positive. Conclusion. The results of the research indicate the need for further research on this issue and planning of appropriate programs aimed at developing positive attitudes towards inclusive education of students with all kinds of disabilities.

Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North by Sarah Handley-Cousins

Reviewed by: Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North by Sarah Handley-Cousins Peter C. Luebke (bio) Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North. By Sarah Handley-Cousins. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2019. Pp. 186. Cloth, $39.95.) When one thinks about Civil War casualties, one inevitably thinks about the piles of limbs outside of battlefield hospitals. The amputee with the empty sleeve draws attention as the epitome of the horror of war. But the amputee also presents an unambiguous figure, one whose broken body [End Page 292] self-evidently displays dedication to the cause. What about the thousands of soldiers who experienced other wounds? With Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North, Sarah Handley-Cousins takes an expansive view of wartime injuries and disabilities, charting a variety of harms. Soldiers, veterans, and the government struggled to define disability. They also grappled with who was worthy of government assistance and how much of it they should receive. In Bodies in Blue, “disability” serves as a concept that overlaps with masculinity. American masculinity in the nineteenth century meant “the ability to command one’s body and use it in labor to maintain independence” (3). Injury and illness threatened the ability of soldiers to control their bodies, which in turn undermined their ability to maintain independence through labor. Thus, during the war and after, the idea of disability remained imbricated with ideas of masculinity and who properly counted as a man. Handley-Cousins traces these struggles in six chapters. The first two chapters consider who possessed the authority to determine disability. The first chapter charts how the War Department, facing a manpower crisis, conceived of “disability as a continuum of degrees” and created the Invalid Corps, renamed the Veteran Reserve Corps in 1864 (18). The Veteran Reserve Corps, besides keeping bodies in uniform, aimed to give injured soldiers productive work, thereby keeping them off the pension rolls. The next chapter uses court-martial records to show how the men contested that officers had the “power to legitimize disability” (44). Unsurprisingly, officers and surgeons prevailed, with decisions often hinging on the perceived moral character of the enlisted soldier. How Union authorities sought to understand injury and illness through the creation of the Army Medical Museum provides the topic for the third chapter. Here, Handley-Cousins looks less at disability and more at how Union doctors appropriated bodies to serve their ends. Doctors claimed soldiers’ bodies in order to expand medical knowledge of war wounds, with specimens on display at the Army Medical Museum. Handley-Cousins maintains that the museum demonstrated how “Union doctors turned the bodies of soldiers into government property” (69). The fourth and fifth chapters look at disability after the war. The fourth chapter considers Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who suffered a grievous wound during the siege of Petersburg. The injuries to his hip, bladder, and penis afflicted him until they ultimately took his life in 1914. Unlike the missing limbs of amputees, Chamberlain’s wound remained private, which in turn made it difficult for him to receive a disability pension. The example of Chamberlain challenges notions that disability had to be visible. The fifth chapter appraises how the Pension Bureau judged soldiers against [End Page 293] an idea of masculinity and penalized those who failed to fit that ideal. As in the war, government authorities’ views of what disability looked like trumped those of the soldiers themselves. Finally, Handley-Cousins examines, in her sixth chapter, the invisible disability of wartime-related psychological trauma. Using case studies of several soldiers, Handley-Cousins demonstrates that suffering extended beyond the veterans themselves to their families. She also shows how psychiatric care often centered on restoring productivity to disabled veterans, which in turn rehabilitated their manhood and could facilitate their release. Indeed, “war trauma was not simple or static” (123). The chapters open interpretive space, but they also raise important questions about the scope of the book itself. Handley-Cousins focuses her discussion on white male soldiers, although brief references to African American soldiers and other people of color hover around the margins. Observations such as “Blackness itself was a kind of disability in ante-bellum America” and...

Physical therapy: A worldwide overview

The current population rate has increasing the number of inhabitants with some kind of disability. In this work a proposal to determining trends, research groups, authors, countries, journals and organizations about Physical Therapy has done. The study is based on the Web of Science (WoS) database, where were found 77,960 documents regarding Physical Therapy; the category with most documents published is Rehabilitation with 13%; the most prolific author is PhD Julie Fritz from the University of Utah with more 10,000 citations; the organization with the greatest number of documents is the University of Toronto; a map of the countries with most documents is presented and shows that United States of America (USA) is the number one. The top 5 of journals is leaded by Physical Therapy journal. A clustering analysis to find out groups of researchers and main keywords show that there are 38 clusters where there is a high collaboration between authors; the collaboration between organizations shows that the University of Toronto interacted with several organizations; regarding keywords, the most used is Therapy, followed by rehabilitation, physical-activity and quality of life.

Issues Faced by the Cochlear Implanted Students in the Mainstream Classes: An Analysis of Perspectival Accounts of Primary School Teachers

Learning to write is developmentally essential for nurturing literate children; its inability creates a huge barrier so is true for cochlear implanted students who face several challenges in terms of literacy and language development proficiency. It is a big challenge for any child with any kind of disability especially a listening disability to cope in the mainstream classroom with their peers and the communities where they live. And so is true for teachers of mainstream classes in their efforts towards classroom learning in a comfortable environment for such students. These papers aim at investigating perceptions and the problems faced by the primary teachers while teaching CI students in the mainstream classes. The study adopted qualitative methodology and the sample was purposively selected comprising of seven primary teachers who had CI students in their respective classes and were teaching them. Semi-structured interviews to determine the perceptions and the problems they encounter during the teaching-learning process. The semi-structured interview schedule consisted of twenty-four questions that were grouped into four major themes of the study. The results highlighted the importance of teachers' awareness, their training, and the use of differentiated instructions to help CI learners to cope in the mainstream classroom to their maximum potential.

DOES DISABILITY STATUS AFFECT MATERNAL CARE AROUND PREGNANCY? EVIDENCE FROM NATIONAL SURVEY OF FAMILY GROWTH (NSFG) 2013-2015 DATA IN UNITED STATES

Abstract Introduction It is estimated that approximately 12% of the reproductive age women have some kind of disability; which is measured as self-reported difficulty in performing basic functions concerning movement, vision, hearing or cognition. Little research has been conducted on reproductive health of women with disabilities using nationally representative survey data; thus body of scientific knowledge on this subject is limited. Objectives The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of disability status (both mental and physical) among women on prenatal care and post-pregnancy care in U.S. using nationally representative National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) data. Study design It’s a retrospective, quantitative, observational study. Methods The 2013-2015 NSFG’s female respondent file contains 5699 records one for each woman interviewed whereas the pregnancy respondent file contains 9358 records each related to a pregnancy. The data about disabilities related variables was part of female respondent file therefore using unique respondent ID files were merged and logistic regression models were built using prenatal and postnatal care as dependent and disability status as main independent variable. Results Women with Medicaid were significantly less likely as compared to those with private insurance to have received prenatal care in last 12 months. Women with less than 12 years education were less likely to have received post pregnancy care as compared to those with college education. Conclusion: Although this study did not find significant effects of disability on utilization of prenatal and post-pregnancy care, further research is needed on this subject with datasets that include comprehensive information about broader spectrum of disability status of women.

A dual-arm mobile robot system performing assistive tasks operated via P300-based brain computer interface

PurposeIn the past decade, more than 700 million people are affected by some kind of disability or handicap. In this context, the research interest in assistive robotics is growing up. For people with mobility impairments, daily life operations, as dressing or feeding, require the assistance of dedicated people; thus, the use of devices providing independent mobility can have a large impact on improving their life quality. The purpose of this paper is to present the development of a robotic system aimed at assisting people with this kind of severe motion disabilities by providing a certain level of autonomy.Design/methodology/approachThe system is based on a hierarchical architecture where, at the top level, the user generates simple and high-level commands by resorting to a graphical user interface operated via a P300-based brain computer interface. These commands are ultimately converted into joint and Cartesian space tasks for the robotic system that are then handled by the robot motion control algorithm resorting to a set-based task priority inverse kinematic strategy. The overall architecture is realized by integrating control and perception software modules developed in the robots and systems environment with the BCI2000 framework, used to operate the brain–computer interfaces (BCI) device.FindingsThe effectiveness of the proposed architecture is validated through experiments where a user generates commands, via an Emotiv Epoc+ BCI, to perform assistive tasks that are executed by a Kinova MOVO robot, i.e. an omnidirectional mobile robotic platform equipped with two lightweight seven degrees of freedoms manipulators.Originality/valueThe P300 paradigm has been successfully integrated with a control architecture that allows us to command a complex robotic system to perform daily life operations. The user defines high-level commands via the BCI, letting all the low-level tasks, for example, safety-related tasks, to be handled by the system in a completely autonomous manner.

Caregivers’ limited rights to legally act on behalf of Alzheimer patients: Learning from the Brazilian experience

AbstractBackgroundThe Brazilian law 13.146/2015 implemented the UNO’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2016. It modified the private law rules concerning a person’s ability to legally act, and it does not acknowledge the concept of “total disability” anymore, but only “partial disability” or “restricted legal capacity” (with the exception of minors who continue to be legally incompetent). Other persons with limited intellectual or physical capacities are now legally “partially disabled”. The reason for this change of paradigm was the legislators’ aim to follow the Convention and to strengthen the principle of human dignity, one major foundation of the constitutional system. The law was certainly meant well, but it does, however, not allow any difference among the many kinds of disabilities. Whether being physical, intellectual, mental (as Alzheimer) or else, they are indiscriminately considered as one unique disability. The legislators created a problem for patients with Alzheimer: they cannot be considered totally disabled now, even if in fact they are. The (family) caregivers are now only in charge of the economic sphere of the disabled person. Thus, every aspect of personal life is legally left for the disabled (and often helpless) person to decide, whether it factually can, or not. Caring family members could not change the circumstances. However; the Supreme Court of the State of São Paulo has recently applied a wide interpretation of the law, extending caregivers’ rights to decide about the personal sphere of the patients.MethodsThe presentation will offer a brief comparative overview over the range of the problem, thus aiming to produce the followingResultsAn indiscriminate application of well‐meant rules can be counterproductive in the case of Alzheimer patients.ConclusionsThe UN Convention and national legislation should be taken from the Procrustean bed of absoluteness and instead softened and rethought in a way that caregivers can be enabled to act in the best interest of the patients.

Educational Inclusion through the Universal Design for Learning: Alternatives to Teacher Training

Universal design for instruction (UDI) is a teaching strategy that has proved its value in the process of educational inclusion, resulting in a fundamental tool for the achievement of objective 4 of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. The lack of time of university professors and the scarce training offered in this subject make it difficult to know and implement UDI in university classrooms, increasing the risk of exclusion of students with some kind of disability. This study analyses the level of knowledge and implementation of the principles and strategies of UDI by university professors. Those professors did not have prior training, but they had access to the Curricular Adaptations of University Students with Special Educational Needs (CAUSSEN) tool as guide to implement different guidelines. The CAUSSEN tool is a document, developed by the Unit of Attention to People with Disability, in which there is information about UDI guidelines and accommodations referring to students with special educational needs. Results show a wide implementation of the UDI principles, despite the low level of previous knowledge its principles. This study concludes that there are practical alternatives to the lack of training, and that teachers’ self-perception of their own effectiveness and ability to cope with the inclusion of all students should be strengthened.

Acessibilidade na rede hoteleira pessoense: o papel de construtoras, de projetistas e do poder público no cumprimento do Decreto Federal nº.9.296/2018

<p>O Desenho Universal tem como objetivo diminuir as barreiras arquitetônicas que são enfrentadas por pessoas com mobilidade reduzida ou que possuem algum tipo de deficiência, desse modo, buscando a utilização do ambiente de forma segura, com autonomia total ou assistida. Nesse contexto, há a criação de normas, leis e decretos que visam assegurar que seja cumprida a acessibilidade. A presente pesquisa foi desenvolvida na cidade de João Pessoa, Estado da Paraíba, com a finalidade de analisar o cumprimento do Decreto nº. 9.296/2018, que se destina a hotéis, pousadas e estabelecimentos similares, junto a construtoras, projetistas (arquitetos) e ao poder público. Para tanto, entrevistas foram realizadas com uma amostra de três construtoras, três projetistas e com um fiscal da Prefeitura Municipal de João Pessoa (PMJP). Buscou-se avaliar, por meio dos instrumentos de coleta de dados, a postura desses três segmentos. Os resultados demonstram a necessidade de uma maior assimilação do conteúdo do decreto por parte das construtoras e dos projetistas e de uma moderada percepção por parte do poder público, em relação aos demais segmentos.</p>

Haunted by the past: transformations and daily challenges of China's prosthetics

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the transformations of prosthetic practices in China, as well as the daily experiences and dilemmas arising from the everchanging practices since 1949. On the basis of materials, this paper explores an everyday perspective to review the history of technology.Design/methodology/approachEthnography was collected with the application of participant observations, informal interviews and in-depth interviews during a 13-months study at a rehabilitation center in Chengdu, China. The literature on prosthetic manufacturing was also reviewed for this paper.FindingsChina's prosthetic technology seems to evolve from traditional to modern. However, this progressive narrative – innovation-based timeline (Edgerton, 2006, xi) – has been challenged by daily practices. Due to institutional pressures, prosthetists are in a dilemma of selectively using their knowledge to create one kind of device for all prosthesis users with a certain kind of disability, thereby regulating the physical and social experiences of prosthesis users. Besides, prosthesis users are accustomed to prostheses made with old techniques, and must correct themselves from old experiences to the daily practices recognized by the selected techniques.Originality/valueThis paper provides a cross-cultural case to reexamine Edgerton's criticism of the progressive and orderly innovation-centric technological narrative. More importantly, it reviews the history and practices of China's prosthetics from daily experiences rather than Edgerton's concentration on technology; therefore, it provides an everyday perspective for future research on technological transformations.