Patients With Intellectual Disabilities And Their Obstacles

 

         Omar opened the door and discretely stared at the people who were inside the office where he would later be interviewed. His wide blue eyes scanned the room looking for a chair before he was forced to patiently wait for his turn to be asked. . His hands got sweaty as he scanned the room that was filled with people.  After a half an hour wait, Omar got to sit down with his mentor for an interview. He felt a big relief after it was over. But on the following day, he would repeat the whole process. Omar had just finished a typical day of school. 

         Omar Yehia is a 27-years-old man with a mind of a six years-old young boy. He was diagnosed with autism and mild intellectual disability since his birth and has to face the challenges that his mental disability puts him through every day.

Omar is one of the estimated 200 million cases who have been diagnosed with intellectual disability worldwide. Intellectual disability is mainly caused by errors in the development of the brain in the first years of a child’s life. .

         Autism, also known as ASD, is a developmental disability that results from brain abnormalities. Scientists are not certain about the causes, but it is likely that both genetics and environment play a role. Common signs of autism include a need to be alone, avoiding eye contact, no response to the individual’s name, getting upset by minor changes, flapping hands, rocking their bodies or even sometimes spinning in circles.

 

 

Personal Obstacles and Challenges

         There are no accurate statistics on intellectual disability in Egypt, but according to the United Nations Development Assistance Framework; an estimate of 3.4 percent of the population is affected by intellectual disability. Intellectual disability, also known as ID, varies from mild to profound. Patients with severe disability are heavily dependent on their parents or they are looked after by people responsible for them. Milder cases are more independent and better learners.

Omar suffers from mild intellectual disability, which means he is a considerably quick learner. Dr. Mohsen Mohamed, Omar’s doctor, said, “Omar has the capability to read, count and learn but he doesn’t use his full potential.” He added, “Omar is a genius in some unusual aspects; he makes figures with the pottery and even made his own exhibition. He is an artist.”

         Dr. Mohamed explained that patients who have a mild level of intellectual disability may suffer the most because they compare themselves to their relatives and the people close to them. “The mild intellectually disabled are the only ones who have the capability to compare, the more severe cases do not really understand the dynamics of the relationships around them,” he said. Dr. Mohamed noted that patients like Omar realize they are different from the people around them and that they often ask questions such as: “Why did my brother get engaged and I didn’teven though I am older?” or “Why did my sister go to university and I didn’t?”

.

         Another problem Dr. Mohamed noted lies in the challenges some patients experience during adolescence, when they go through puberty and begin to think about the other gender in a romantic and sexual way while their intellectual level hasn’t properly developed. This problem has often resulted in patients marrying one another and conceiving children when they can’t look after them. In such cases, parents of patients are forced to become the parents of their grandchildren.  Dr. Mohamed explained that the patient-child relationship often becomes like “ a child playing with another child.” According to him, when children of parents with disabilities grow up, they have a high chance of developing a mechanism system to protect themselves by disappearing from the lives of their biological parents and hiding the fact that they have parents with intellectual disability in order to live a “normal life”.

          Another critical problem as written in a scholarly article published in the Psychiatric Times is that there is an estimate of 32 to 40 percent prevalence of phychiatric diseases/disorders in people with intellectual disability. Individuals diagnosed with intellectual disability are highly at risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or even dissociative identity disorder. Patients can also develop challenging behaviors such as aggression toward others, self-injurious behavior, inappropriate social and sexual behavior. This means families of the disabled not only have to deal with the brain disorder but also with all the other illnesses that are tagged along.

         There are nearly 369 public and private organizations dedicated to help people with intellectual disability. 1.8 percent of government funding goes to rehabilitation facilities.

         Amena El-Saie, co-founder and CEO of HELM, a civil association that helps people with disability, said that not having an early diagnosis prevents disabled individuals from having a proper schooling and does not give them the opportunities to act upon their skills. “It’s a huge problem, there are over 18 million disable individuals in Egypt and we still lack most of the services that should be provided for them,” she added.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obstacles In Egypt

         According to the 2011 the United Nations Development Action Framework report, nearly 97 percent of disabled people in the third world countries are not given proper medical care or rehabilitation services that allow them to be part of the society. The same report also found that disabled women are two to three times more at risk to be sexually abused or suffer from other forms of exploitation. In addition, that 98 percent of the disabled children are not provided with any education in the developing countries. 

         The Declaration of the Rights of Disabled Persons states that people with disability have the “same rights as other human beings,” including the right to education and health care. Meanwhile, the Social Rehabilitation Law No.39 guarantees disabled citizens the right to benefit from rehabilitation services. However, none of the mentioned laws are being applied on the ground.

         According to Harvard School of Public Health, “ill-health is concentrated amongst the poorer groups in the population.”  The report found that 13.7 percent of the poorest part of the population has reported symptoms for chronic illness (including intellectual disability) compared to 21.3 percent of the richest part of the Egyptian population.

These statistics lead us to another fundamental obstacle for the disabled people and their families in Egypt, which is awareness. Poor families, according to these numbers, tend to lack basic awareness on the symptoms that are related to acute and chronic diseases, including physical and mental disabilities.

 

         As for Omar, he is one of the lucky few that were properly diagnosed and treated. He attends special classes designed to help children with disability and aspires to become a successful artist. As Omar’s doctor said: “Omar does not use his full potential, if he works more on himself and develop his skills, he can get to the peak.”