Based on the latest report of World Health Organization (WHO), around 15% of the global population have some form of disability. Therefore, it is possible for you to know someone who belongs to the community of the Persons with Disability (PWD).
If that’s the case, we will help you in getting to know more about the PWDs by providing a crash course about them.
What is Disability?
The globally accepted definition of disability is classified as a condition or function of a person that were considered to be radically impaired equated to the customary guideline of an individual or group.
It can be a congenital condition wherein the person was born with an impairment while some disability is acquired during their lifetime. The term “disability” can refer to individual functioning comprising physical or mobility, sensory, cognitive, and intellectual impairments.
On the other hand, some disability can also refer to some conditions that are caused by some illness or trauma in the brain while some from different types of chronic disease.
In simple terms, disability is a condition where there may be effects on organs or body parts of a person and also an effect to a person's participation in life. These impairments can hinder or reduce a person’s capacity to perform their daily activities.
Types of Disability
Disability can be classified into different categories that can further help us understand their conditions. Basically, there are eight (8) main types of disability:
Physical Disability (Mobility and Orthopedic)
This type of disability is the most common type of impairments in the world. It is a physical condition that affects a person’s mobility, physical capacity, stamina, or agility. Commonly, it is an impairment on the joints, muscles, or limbs.
Most people who have physical disabilities are using different equipment to help them with their movements and do their daily activities.
Spinal Cord Disability
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a type of disability that can also be under the category of physical disability. However, due to the increase number of cases, this type of disability was already given its own classification.
SCI mostly leads to lifetime impairments because this kind of injury primarily occurs due to severe accidents and complications in various disease. The spinal cord injury can be either complete or incomplete.
In an incomplete injury, the signaling messages that are transmitted through the spinal cord is not completely lost. To put it simply, some parts of the body are still functional whereas a complete injury results in complete paralysis of the sensory organs.
But in some cases, the cause of spinal cord disability is congenital disability in which a person was born with it already.
Head or Brain Disability
In this type of disability, a person’s brain was injured that causes an impairment to their heads. The scale of this impairment or injury can vary between mild, moderate, and severe.
Basically, there are two types of brain injuries which are Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
From the word itself, the acquisition of ABI is mainly caused by an external force that are applied on the head. On the other hand, TBI is a result of a traumatic situations that causes emotional misfunctioning and behavioral disorder.
Vision Disability
Visual impairment (vision impairment, vision disability) is described as a reduced ability of a person to see or somehow have unclear vision which cannot be treated by typical methods such as glasses or medication.
Hundreds of thousands of people have this type of disability which varies between minor to serious vision impairment which can lead to permanent problems like blindness and ocular trauma.
Some of those eye disorders that can lead to vision disability are retinal degeneration, albinism, cataracts, glaucoma, muscular problems that result in visual disturbances, corneal disorders, diabetic retinopathy, congenital disorders, and infection.
Cognitive (Learning) Disability
One of the most common type of disability aside from physical impairments are the cognitive infirmities. It is also known as the intellectual disability which is a condition that causes a person to have a delay on their mental development.
This impairment makes a person to have difficulty with thought processes, learning, communicating, and remembering information that are needed to make judgments and problem solving. It can involve in understanding or in using spoken or written language.
Based on studies, cognitive disabilities are affecting more males than females. They are diagnosed in between one and three percent of the population. Furthermore, experts state that this impairment is rooted in biology or physiology.
Psychological Disability (Disorders)
Psychological Disability or disorders is a mental health Impairment wherein people have experienced psychiatric problems or conditions such as personality disorders and schizophrenia.
A personality disorder is a type of mental or psychological impairment in which a person has an inflexible and unnatural pattern of thinking, functioning, and behaving.
People with this impairment has trouble perceiving and relating to situations and people which causes some problems and limitations in relationships, social activities, work, school, and their daily activities.
In some cases, a person with this type of psychological disability does not realize that they have a personality disorder because they thought their way of thinking and behaving seems natural to them. Basically, personality disorders usually begin in the teenage years or early adulthood.
On the other hand, a Schizophrenia is another type of mental disorder characterized by disturbances of thinking, mood, and behavior. In other words, people who have this mental impairment interpret reality inappropriately.
Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and exceptionally disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning.
People with schizophrenia require lifelong treatment. Early detection and treatment can make the symptoms under control before serious impediments develop and may have a better long-term outlook.
Invisible Disability
Invisible disabilities are not the usual type of impairments. People who have this type of disability have conditions such as chronic diseases like renal failure and diabetes, sleeping disorders, sitting disability, and many more which hinders them to do their daily activities efficiently.
Aside from the challenges that the person who have this impairment experiences, the acknowledgement of other people for them is also quite a predicament. Others usually do not understand the cause of an impairment if it is not visible.
That’s why most of the time, people with invisible disabilities are often accused of faking or just making stories of their disabilities.
Conclusion
Before we end this crash course for disability, let us give you some thoughts to ponder. We wanted to remind everyone that Person with Disabilities must not be judged based on their conditions. Whether it is physical, mental, or invisible impairments, people should treat them with honor and dignity.
These people are not in their situations because they wanted to but that does not mean other people have the right to be judgmental towards them.
Instead of looking down on them, we should help the people with disabilities to achieve their dreams and goals in life. Remember, a person with disability is also a person with dignity.
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