Living With Physical Disability: Causes and Effects - Research Paper

Introduction

This is a condition in which some aspects of a human body are not functioning physically. It normally affects mobility, dexterity, and the stamina of the patient. It limits various facets in the life of the patient, including things like breathing and the movement of the individual. They have the potential of causing other conditions such as blindness, epilepsy, and even sleeping disorders. There are various causes of these physical disorders.

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The cause of disability depends on the period in which the victim contracted it. Those who are obtained before birth, known as prenatal disabilities, may be due to accidents that occurred during embryonic and foetal developments. Others may be due to genetic disorder or those who have be3n inherited from the parents. The second age is perinatal, which often occur a few weeks after birth. This may happen due to damages caused to the body during birth, such as prolonged lack of oxygen, therefore, causing respiratory damage (Prasher & Matthew, 2018, pp137). Those gained at the course of growth are mainly due to accidents, infections, diseases, and health disorders such as obesity.

They are categorized according to how they develop. They can, therefore, b progressive, stable, visible, invisible, fluctuating, or intermittent. The progressive disorders, for example, are characterized by multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and chronic arthritis. The non-progressive ones can either be stable or non-stable. The stable ones are characterized by cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, and Spina Bifida. Those which fluctuate are characterized by fibromyalgia and chronic syndrome of fatigue. Visual impairment and hearing loss also fall under this category of physical impairment. This involves both cases of whether the condition is partial or complete impairment. Often, these two result in other disorders like the disorders associated with speech and language, mostly those with hearing impairment.

Mental Disorders

Mental disorder is a term that is used to refer to illnesses that affect the activity of the brain and the mind. People with these conditions experience difficulty in maintaining some level of concentration, and cannot manage some aspect like stress. They often affect how an individual thinks and perceive things, especially those about their personality. They have a high tendency of getting depressed, having anxiety, and symptoms of schizophrenia.

The causes of mental disorders are varied, and too many people; it is not very clear. Their manifestation is indicated by how an individual feels, behaves, and perceives things around them. Determining the disabilities, therefore, becomes sometimes difficult unless a psychiatrist is consulted (Perlin, 2017, pp23). They affect particular regions of the brain by altering the normal functioning of the areas. It is therefore very important to observe the actions of an individual and gauge if they are functioning normally.

Mental disorder is categorized into six major types. The fits one deals with mood disorders. Under mood disorders, it is caused mainly by stress, which then leads to depression and therefore affects the mental ability of an individual. This may even lead to hysteria. The second one is anxiety disorders, which include phobias and panic disorders. It is caused by a condition where the individual feels insecure. The third one is an eating disorder, which takes different shapes. Some overeat, and others eat very little and therefore affecting the growth of the body. The fourth characteristic includes organic brain disorders, which are caused by diseases and injuries. The fifth one is called schizophrenia, which is an advanced form of mental illness. The last one is personality disorders, where the victim has a hard time getting along with other people.

Intellectual Disabilities

People with this type of disability often have a problem in the skills needed to live normally, work, and be productive in the community as others. They have imitations towards daily living skills, social skills, communication, self-direction, and safety. It is commonly characterized into syndromic and non-syndromic intellectual ability. Syndromic is associated with medical and behavioural signs that are present while non-syndromic are associated with other disorders.

Intellectual disabilities among children can be due to inheritance from the parents or due to genetic defects. Among other people, things like accidents, mutations, and diseases are the major causes of this condition. There may be deficiencies in the health of an individual, for example, deficiency of iodine, which may cause these disorder as a result of the body lacking minerals required for its normal functioning. Malnutrition also affects the immunity of the body, which in turn affects the intellectual performance of the individual. This would, therefore, put the person in the risk of developing intellectual disabilities.

In the determination of intellectual disability, three factors are considered. The first one is the limitations that one has in mental abilities, and this limitation must be significant (Kaufman, 2018, pp63). The second factor is that there must be a limitation in the adaptive behaviour of the victim in different environments. These environments include communication, interpersonal skills, and self-help skills. The last determiner is that they should be evident mostly in childhood and at adolescence. The other indicator is that the victims often have an IQ of below 70.

Work Cited

Kaufman, Alan S. Contemporary intellectual assessment: Theories, tests, and issues. Guilford Publications, 2018, pp. 35-78.

Perlin, Michael L., Heather Ellis Cucolo, and Alison Lynch. Mental disability law: Cases and materials. Carolina Academic Press, 2017, pp. 19-36.

Prasher, Vee P., and Matthew P. Janicki, eds. Physical Health of Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Springer, 2018, pp. 126- 190.