Caring for spastics (1976)

[Music] Perfect Balance control coordination the grace of [Music] Champions [Music] we start practicing very early long before we can remember and although few of us become Champions most of us develop an extraordinary degree of control over our bodies all movements originate here in the brain so complex that researchers are still unraveling the ways in which it controls countless physical movements and thought processes we do know that the main surface areas are here and that the most important regions inside the brain are the basal ganglia the cerebellum and the reticular substance through these three regions pass a complicated system of related messages that eventually reach the part of the body that is being moved move in fact by the time we're 2 years old we become capable of quite complicated ey and hand coordination but if these control mechanisms are damaged this coordination can be seriously affected is the popular term for what doctors call cerebral py it's caused by damage to one or other of these main areas of the brain once brain cells are damaged the control of various parts of the body is affected when the damage is mainly here messages no longer run smoothly to the different parts of the body they become rather like electric shocks involuntary movements occur that can cause a person's limbs to jerk violently it makes ordered control of movement very difficult this type of cerebral Psy is called athetosis when the damage is mainly in these areas the messages become distorted broken unclear as if the limbs were being pulled in different directions at the same time the muscles seem to be stiff and the limbs move in a slow ponderous fashion this type of cereal py is called spasticity the degree of damage varies in cereal py and can affect more than one main area speech and hearing can be affected if this area is damaged and the Damage May extend to here which may mean the person has a mental handicap as well as a physical one cerebral paly is a major problem in Britain a very rough estimate puts the number of people suffering from the disorder at around 100,000 and it's a problem that concerns all of us particularly as a child with cerebral py can be born to any family its exact causes a largely a mystery it's it's it's the emotionals dra that's the greatest I mean the the slow Dawning that here is a childood is different from Ever from your sister-in-law who's got one just the same age and isn't making your child as know how mothers compare babies and Harriet was always not doing the things that other children of her age were doing if someone can write down a table of things that's going to happen then most people can face that but it is the kind of unknown quantity aspect of of the condition that is very hard to take anxieties like these that all parents with handicapped children share prompted a group to form the Society to fight for a brighter future for their children and the many thousands of families who have to face the enormous problems of bringing up a handicapped child now over 20 years later it's become the leading organization in the world for the care welfare and training of people suffering from cerebral py with 180 local groups in England and Wales it's established through their efforts over 160 residential homes training centers hosts industrial units and schools research is also an important part of the society's activities and it's financed a unit at gu hospital here an intensive program of research has been organized into the causes of cerebral py but the answer to the problem does only lie at the end of the microscope that's just one approach the care of newborn babies particularly those born prematurely and trying to discover mothers who may be at risk during pregnancy are as important as any scientific breakthrough it's a long Hall attacking on a number of fronts but reducing the incidence of cerebral py by perhaps 1 or 2% a year for the child with cerebal py one of the first contacts with the Society May well be here if he's going to benefit fully from the range of services the society offers he needs to be assessed to find out just what he can and cannot do assessment mainly involves trying to overcome communication difficulties and map out a picture of what lies behind those difficulties in terms of his potential if we provide the the pointing and the questions the speech and give him a chance to sit and think about um those sort of problems John is a severe athetoid his speech and coordination are very limited so there's little point trying to use ordinary communication methods to get through to him okay let me do some pointing John you ready uhhuh we're looking for the one that's different is it that one is it that one yes it is that one okay which one is is different there we have to look at them all don't we and one of them's not the same as the others yeah is is it this one is it that one good boy although John has hardly any means of expressing himself Beyond nodding his head by the time these various tests were completed his IQ was assessed at 120 a generation ago his future would have been Bleak he'd have been classified as impossible to educate and would probably have spent most of his life in an institution for the mentally handicapped but now John will join the thousands of children with cerebal py who benefited from the many special schools the SP IC Society has built schools like ingfield Manor where the society has pioneered new techniques for the teaching of the severely physically handicapped child at ingfield education of mind and body are seen as Inseparable the teacher of reading and writing also teaches walking sitting and hand control the day-to-day routine consists of a series of tasks broken down into simple movements repeated time and time again I kick I kick one two one two one two one [Music] two [Music] over it looks a bit like brainwashing and in a way it is because what the teacher is trying to do by constant repetition is recondition the child's movements so that this simple gripping exercise develops into this then to using the fingers like this to using a pencil and where that isn't possible the child can be taught to use a typewriter or if that isn't possible technology can simplify the task what does it say that's it Andy so you're going to have to go all the way around again to be Det that slowing it down ready good cleans the first one give it a good clean and keep singing One cling the second [Music] one push right step left and stretch push right step left and stretch for the children at ingfield the aim is physical Independence but not all children are that lucky this child is physically handicapped mentally handicapped and deaf he's a pupil at meldreth Manor a school designed by the Society to provide a stimulating environment and the most up-to-date teaching techniques for 120 children who are mentally as well as physically handicapped one of the main characteristics of mental handicap is that the concentration span is often limited to a matter of seconds so learning by ordinary teaching methods often produces poor results in this classroom the children have a teacher paints and toys the usual classroom materials but the progress of each child is carefully monitored through a one-way mirror and recorded on videotape progress can be compared with earlier results and any increase in the child's concentration span quickly recognized and built upon good mechanical aids to teaching are also widely used particularly with children suffering from the athetoid form of cerebral py who have difficulty using their hands some of the children at meldreth are also deaf which particularly complicates the teaching of the mentally handicap and to overcome this a special signing system has been introduced what is the boy doing good good boy the padic Gorman system has a number of advantages over other types of sign language each word has a separate sign you can indicate tenses and various suffixes and affixes in fact all the detail of the spoken word this means that for the deaf child language and understanding can be developed to a far greater degree than would be possible with traditional sign language you are very [Music] clever these children are no different in terms of their Potential from the child who lives in the hospital for the mentally handicapped the difference is that these children have a unique chance to develop thanks to the resources and expertise at meldreth as they develop they become more alert and responsive and so they appear less handicapped and start to develop personalities of their own what are you going to sing then H all the day H all the day oh I went down sou to see my singing she [Music] is well well my fairy face luig to see sing John [Applause] [Music] right the Thomas delaro school and an atmosphere very different from the quiet protectiveness many people associate with schools for the handicap here great emphasis is placed on competitiveness and on being as physically independent as possible for school levers coming to terms with the outside world is just as important as passing o or a levels a survey in the local local town of access facilities in shops for a wheelchair illustrates the simple point that the outside world doesn't make that many allowances for the handicapped this film has looked at the school years and at what the Society does with the help of its many local groups to provide opportunities for these children to develop their full potential but spastics don't suddenly disappear at 16 or 18 and the Society aims to help them through their adult life every year for instance their social workers and careers advisory officers pay over 20,000 visits to the parents of handicapp children and to adult people and now over 3,000 spastics once considered unemployable are holding down jobs in Commerce and industry but the problems that the adult faces are daunting problems of further education and housing problems of mobility and employment and the Society with its own money or in partnership with local authorities tries to provide Solutions any progress made is all too often an uphill struggle against apathy or attitudes which though polite and well-meaning appear prejudiced what can it be like to be stared at every day of your life when you walk down the street or go into a room to have to fight to be accepted as the person you know yourself to be and not as someone people feel embarrassed by or sorry for these are questions most of us are lucky enough not to have to answer it would be nice to think that when this girl grows up and takes her first steps into the outside world she won't have to answer them either push left step right and [Music] stretch [Music] [Music]