Independent Living After Spinal Cord Injury
How can a person with severe physical impairments live independently? The answer is with a personal assistant (PA). A PA does for the disabled person what the disabled person would normally would do if he or she were not disabled. These tasks include bathing, feeding, housekeeping and even note taking. All these tasks are performed under the instruction of the disabled person.
A PA may be needed for a couple of hours a day or 24 hours continuously. It all depends on the needs of the disabled person. In countries such as Japan and Sweden, the government pays for the services of personal assistants. This has vastly improved the quality of life of disabled persons who are then able to achieve self determination over their own lives.
The PA can either be personally recruited by the disabled person or come from a pool of PAs from a Centre for Independent Living (CIL) or private commercial entities specialising in provision of such services. PA service is consumer-based and the renumeration should be at market-rate for similar service rendered.
The relationship between the disabled person and PA is that of employer and employee. This is to ensure an acceptable standard of service. The disabled person is the one to hire, train and even dismiss a PA based on performance.
Tags: Centre for Independent Living, Independent Living, Personal Assistant service
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