COPING WITH SUBSTANTIAL HANDICAP: MENTAL RETARDATION, CEREBRAL PALSY, INTRACTABLE SEIZURES
For 80 percent of children with epilepsy, seizures can be controlled. For those children and their families, epilepsy is not and should not be a substantial handicap. For zo percent, the uncontrolled seizures themselves may constitute a significant impairment; and for some children with mental retardation or cerebral palsy, epilepsy may be a substantial secondary disability. These children and their parents carry a significant burden, a greater degree of guilt, anger, frustration, sorrow, and just plain hard work. These parents need to understand these disabilities so they may help their children as much as circumstances allow.Damage to the brain causes these problems. Damage in the motor areas of the brain causes cerebral palsy. When damage or dysfunction occurs throughout a considerable area of the brain it may lead to mental retardation. Epilepsy also exists because the brain is not functioning properly. Mental retardation and cerebral palsy, while sometimes accompanied by epilepsy, never cause epilepsy. Epilepsy never causes cerebral palsy and seldom causes mental retardation.Parents with a severely disabled child must also gradually come to a realistic acceptance of their child’s disability. Mechanisms for coping are the same as for the parent of the less disabled child, but the goal is often far more difficult to achieve. In addition to working through your own adjustment, you must also help your child get the service he will need. You must be an advocate. Both you and your child will have special needs. Finding the help is sometimes difficult; for some people, accepting the help is even more difficult.*193\208\8*
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