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Stroke Recovery: Disability Products
A stroke can affect a patient in many different ways, from paralyzing one part of the body to paralyzing an entire side of the body. In some cases, stroke may cause weakness in the entire body or may cripple the entire body. There are many products on the market to help stroke patients become more independent.
For the kitchen, there are scooper plates and plate guards to help make eating much easier for stroke patients with limited upper limb mobility. For daily living and prevention of pressure sores, a variety of gel mattresses, bed wedges, positioning pillows, and air beds are available. Some air beds (which are usually found in hospitals, but can be specially ordered) have an automatic “turner” that will air up one side, turning a patient to the left or right or allowing the patient to lie flat on his or her back. The time frame for each turn can be programmed into the bed.
For bathing and dressing, shower chairs and dressing aids are available to help stroke patients become more independent while caring for themselves. Gait belts, wheelchair accessories, and bed canes can also help stroke patients become more independent.
Using the right disability products and assistive devices can allow stroke patients to have much more independence and not have to rely on caregivers for everything. Depending on the severity of the disability caused by the stroke, these devices may even allow stroke patients to become completely independent in the home.
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Contacting & Locating The Social Security Office
To begin your application for or to ask questions about Social Security Disability, you may call your local Social Security office, or call the national toll-free number 1-800-772-1213.
To find your local Social Security office telephone number in the telephone book, look under "U.S. Government Offices", usually in a blue section in the front of your "Yellow Pages" telephone book. Where I live, it is in a section called "Government Listings", right before all of the "City Of ___" and "State Of ___" listings. The name is officially "Social Security Administration".
For general information and services, the Social Security office is open from 7:00 am until 7 pm.
You may also listen to pre-recorded information 24 hours a day, which many times will answer general questions when you call the nationwide toll-free number.
The TTY number to call is 1-800-325-0778.
Information is available in Spanish as well as English.
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Wheelchair Sports
Many sports, such as baseball, basketball, rugby and football can be adapted to a wheelchair sport. The rules are modified to provide for the wheelchair. For example, in football, the field is only 60 yards long and 22 yards wide. First downs are every 15 yards instead of 10 yards. Games are 50 minutes—two 20-minute halves, with a 10-minute half time. There are no fumbles. A tackle is a touch with one hand above the waist.
Wheelchair sports provide people in wheelchairs with exercise and the ability to meet new people and make friends. Both exercise and the ability to create and maintain friendships can help with the ability to cope with living in a wheelchair. It also provides the person in the wheelchair with upper body exercise. Exercise provides weight control and upper body strengthening, and helps to boost a person’s overall health.
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Wheelchair Accessible Home
Making a home wheelchair accessible can be an expensive project, but with financial help from various grants, the financial burden can be reduced. Ramps can be installed for easy access to the home, giving a person in a wheelchair more independence. Bathrooms should be equipped with grab bars for safety. The grab bars can help a person in a wheelchair move from the chair to the tub, shower or toilet independently.
Most wheelchairs are made to fit within standard doorways, so unless the person in a wheelchair lives in an older house, doorways should not have to be modified. Other modifications to make the house wheelchair accessible is to remove deep carpeting in favor of tile or hardwood floors or thinner carpeting. Grab bars in the kitchen can also help support a person in a wheelchair so that he or she may stand to use the stove or sink. There are plenty of affordable ways to make your home into a wheelchair accessible home.
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Coping with Blindness: Assistive Technology
There are many different types of assistive technology available to give blind people access to books, computers and other electronic devices. These programs work on an off-the-shelf computer or personal data assistant (PDA). Electronic book readers also allow blind people access to books in a form other than Braille.
Video magnifiers (closed-circuit television or CCTV) project magnified images onto a video monitor, a TV screen or a computer monitor. The text can be changed from black on white to white on black, making it easier for someone who is not completely blind to read. If the user doesn’t have enough vision to read for a significant amount of time, eye fatigue and other physical problems may be present. Prior to purchasing a video magnifier, the individual should have a low-vision evaluation. A low-vision specialist can also help determine which video magnifier is appropriate.
Optical character recognition (OCR) systems scan printed text, then convert it to recognized characters and words and sends the information to a synthesizer, which then “reads” the scanned document. OCR systems also use a spell checker and a lexicon, much like a standard word processing program, and will fix spelling errors on the fly, so that the correct word is read back to the listener.
Magnification programs for the computer screen are also available, though many sites are programmed with a “change text size” button. When the user clicks on this, the text becomes larger or smaller, depending on the person’s needs.
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