Program Helps CP Sufferer Live Independently

According to reporting in the Montana Standard, a program designed to help people with cerebral palsy learn the skills necessary to live independently has helped one 21-year-old woman to do so. The article profiles a woman who is currently attending college and working 30 hours per week, and who suffers from cerebral palsy. This program doesn’t involve performing surgeries, giving therapies or doing anything else medical. In some ways, aspects of this program are a bit like a specialized home economics program, designed for those who have special needs and who need to learn how to survive on their own in a world where that can be quite challenging.

Learning the Basics

According to the article, this particular program, called the Montana Independent Living Project, starts working with people when they are around 14 years of age. The program involves teaching people how to make basic meals and perform other tasks that may require a bit of extra instruction for those who have severe disabilities. With the training, many such individuals can learn to live without constant assistance and to enjoy a great deal of independence.

The program also helps people with disabilities to adapt their homes so that they are more suitable for their usage. People with disabilities oftentimes need to use mobility devices and, because of that, standard sized counters and other fixtures may be unworkable for them. By adapting a home to somebody with a disability, it’s possible for them to be able to enjoy the independence that all adults crave and to take care of tasks that would otherwise be impossible.

Not all children start out as young as 14. The woman profiled in the article, in fact, started the program after she had graduated from high school. The program also helped her take care of the steps necessary to get enrolled in college, where she is currently studying occupational therapy.

Help for People with CP

There are plenty of great organizations out there that know how to lend people a cerebral palsy a helping hand. Oftentimes, what they do involves training people a cerebral palsy in how to negotiate the world and get by on their own so that they don’t have to depend on somebody else to take care of their day-to-day tasks for them.