Tagged with: activity limitations chronic health conditions disability
If the number of American adults diagnosed with arthritis is 51.2 million (Centers for Disease Control) and the number of Americans with disabilities is 54.4 million (U.S. Census), I’m confused. Does almost everyone with a disability have arthritis? Or does everyone that has a disability also have arthritis? Or do people with an arthritis diagnosis not necessarily report themselves as having a “disability” so there are actually way more than 54.4 million people out there with one? I know there are more than 3.2 million people out there with a disability other than arthritis, so what gives??
I am somewhat familiar with the research world so I know there is no easy answer. I also know that there is no easy way to ensure that each individual person diagnosed with arthritis in the entire country is counted, nor is there an easy way to make sure self-reported information is completely accurate, or that everyone thinks of the definition of disability exactly the same.
And that I guess is where my point lies. Labels and terms can often just be flat-out misleading. I have often been in conversation with fitness professionals about working with people with disabilities and it will come out in the dialogue that they already train the individuals that we are talking about. To a lot of people “disability” means using a wheelchair or having a specific condition that someone else can visually recognize. But when a personal trainer says, “Oh yeah, I have a client that has some spasticity; guess it was from that stroke she had 10 years ago.” THAT’S who we are talking about. More fitness professionals have experience training people with disabilities (chronic health conditions, activity limitations, diverse function, varied abilities, whatever you wanna call it) than you think.
After reading this . . . is that you??