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    By who you are · 7 tips

    People with disabilities and their families

    Which complications to guard against physically, plus tips for the family member who provides long-term care.

    1 Body

    Living with a disability

    After a spinal cord injury, if there is a sudden severe headache and sweating, help the person sit up straight, loosen clothing, and call 120 (China's ambulance number) at the same time

    In a person with a spinal cord injury, part of the body's alarm wiring is cut. A full bladder or tight clothing may not be felt at all, yet blood pressure can shoot up. The warning signs are a sudden severe headache and sweating. When that happens, first help the person sit up straight, loosen any tight clothing, and check whether the bladder is full, and call 120 (China's ambulance number) at the same time.

    • Top value
    • Evidence B
    • Buys life
    Living with a disability

    If you use a wheelchair long term, switch to a pressure-relieving cushion and check the sitting bones and tailbone once a day

    Among nursing-home residents who used pressure-relieving cushions, pressure sores over the sitting bones were clearly fewer than with an ordinary segmented foam cushion, but when the tailbone was counted together with them, no difference was seen. In the trial everyone was first fitted with a well-fitting wheelchair, so the wheelchair itself should also be fitted to the person's size, not just bought as a generic model.

    • Moderate value
    • Evidence B
    • Buys life
    Living with a disability

    Do rehabilitation at a proper facility with a rehabilitation medicine department, and let the therapist set the intensity: harder is not better (the evidence comes from stroke)

    After a stroke, people admitted to a stroke unit with organized care are more likely to be alive a year later and still able to live at home. But don't add extra on your own either: practicing earlier, more often and more within 24 hours after a stroke led to worse outcomes at three months. How much to practice, and when, is for the rehabilitation department and the therapist to say.

    • Moderate value
    • Evidence A
    • Buys life
    • Disputed
    Living with a disability

    If your hearing is getting worse, get hearing aids, and do it so you can hear, not to prevent dementia

    The claim that “wearing hearing aids prevents dementia” has not held up so far. A three-year trial of nearly 1000 people showed no difference overall. A difference was seen only in the subgroup whose risk of cognitive decline was higher to begin with. So the reason to get hearing aids is to hear right now, to talk with people, and to hear cars when crossing the road, not to protect your brain decades later.

    • Moderate value
    • Evidence A
    • Buys life
    • Disputed
    Living with a disability

    Don't buy treatments and devices that claim to “cure paralysis, blindness or deafness”

    The Advertising Law (《广告法》) is blunt. Ads for medical services, drugs and medical devices may not guarantee results, may not state a cure rate or effective rate, and may not use people giving personal testimonials. So claims like “stand up in three courses of treatment” or “so many people have recovered” are themselves illegal ads, and there is no need to study the principle they describe. Anything that is not a medical device may not even mention treating disease.

    • Moderate value
    • Evidence A
    • Saves money
    Living with a disability

    Treat the first ten years after a spinal cord injury leaves you disabled as a high-risk period for suicide, and don't write it off as something “cheer up” will fix

    A long-term follow-up at two spinal cord injury centers in the U.K. found that the suicide rate in this group was 5 times that of the general population. More than 90% of the suicides happened in the first ten years after the injury. For people whose injury was itself a suicide attempt, the risk is higher still.

    • High value
    • Evidence A
    • Buys life

    2 Guardianship and family

    Living with a disability

    Someone who provides long-term care for a disabled person at home needs someone watching over their own health

    A caregiver breaking down is not being overdramatic. A study in the U.S. followed more than 800 older adults for four years. Among those who cared for a disabled spouse and also reported that they were mentally strained, the risk of death was about 60% higher than for people who did not give care. Caregivers who did not feel strained did not show this rise. So what to watch is not the caregiving itself but the long-term strain.

    • High value
    • Evidence A
    • Buys life
    • Disputed

    Related

    This site arranged the groups and order on this page; the tips come from the book. About