Prevention of Disabilities
3CHAPTER
13
Because this is a book on ‘rehabilitation’, it is mostly about children who are already
disabled. However, preventing disabilities is also very important. For this reason, in most
chapters on specific disabilities, we include suggestions for preventing them.
Notice that we place the discussion of prevention at the end of each chapter, not at the
beginning. This is because people are usually not concerned about disability until someone
they love becomes disabled. Then their first concern is to help that person. After we have
helped a family to do something for their disabled child, we can interest them in ways to
prevent disability in other members of the family and community.
We mention this because when health professionals design community programs, often
they try to put prevention first—and find that people do not show much interest. However,
when a group of parents comes together to help their disabled children, after their immediate
needs are being met, they may work hard for disability prevention.
For a community program to be successful, start with
what the people feel is important, and work from there.
To prevent disabilities, we must understand the causes. In most parts of the world, many
causes of disability relate to poverty. For example:
• When mothers do not get enough to eat during pregnancy, often their babies are born
early or underweight. These babies are much more likely to have cerebral palsy, which is
one of the most common severe disabilities. Also, some birth defects are related to poor
nutrition during the first months of pregnancy.
• When babies and young children do not get enough to eat, they get infections more
easily and more seriously. Diarrhea in a fat baby is usually a mild illness. But in a very
thin, malnourished baby, diarrhea often leads to serious dehydration, high fever, and
sometimes brain damage with seizures or cerebral palsy.
• Poor sanitation and crowded living conditions, together with poor food, make
diseases such as tuberculosis—and the severe disabilities it causes—much more
common.
• Exposure to toxic chemicals even before birth can cause different kinds of
disabilities in children. More dangerous chemicals are used or disposed of in or near
poor communities.
• Lack of basic health and rehabilitation services in poor communities makes disabilities
more common and more severe. Often secondary disabilities develop that could be
prevented with early care.
To prevent the disabilities that result from poverty, big changes are needed in our social
order. There needs to be fairer distribution of land, resources, information, and power. Such
changes will happen only when the poor find the courage to organize, to work together, and
to demand their rights. Disabled persons and their families can become leaders in this
process. Only through a more just society can we hope for a long-term, far-reaching answer
to the prevention of disabilities caused by poverty.