Scoliosis Interview

Scoliosis Interview

I have asked my mum and dad a series of questions about scoliosis. These are the questions and answers from each parent as follows:

1) How did you feel when I was diagnosed with scoliosis?

''I think...I think...Well, we already knew that you had scoliosis. But with everything that you'd already gone through at St. Mary's, it was just one more thing for you to cope with and as a parent, you don't want to actually hear that your child is diagnosed with scoliosis.'' - My dad, David Hoad.

''Erm...I've got to say that I didn't really know what scoliosis was at the time so I wasn't really all that concerned about it, and also because you had more serious problems at the time.''
 - My mum, Hazel Hoad.

2)  How did you feel when I had my first spine operation?

''I was very scared because it was a big operation. I knew that they had to take away one of your ribs. I remember being so  nervous that I questioned Mr. Williamson's ability to carry out the operation.'' - My dad.

''Very scared and very nervous. It took a very long time to do the operation. Relieved when it was over and done with. I also hoped that the outcome would make you feel better and had a better recovery.''  - My mum.

3) How did you feel when you were told that I had to wear a plaster cast?

''Relief at first, because they thought that they could manage your scoliosis with a plaster cast. But then when you were too small to tolerate it, I was really sad because I knew that you would have to a spine operation'' - My dad.

''Devastated. It was my worst nightmare because I'd seen other children with them and they always looked very uncomfortable. It was very difficult performing day-to-day activities.'' - My mum.

4) How did you feel when I came back from an operation?

''Absolute relief because after the major operations because they were so big and long, it was scary. Because there was always a risk that permanent damage could have been done, such as paralysis. On the smaller operations because they were over and done with for another 6 months and you could get back into your normal routines.'' - My dad.

''Relieved and I wanted to make sure that you were okay and braced myself for the grumpiness that came due to the morphine and anasectic. I was also pleases when I had you home and safe again'' - My mum.

Celebrities with Disabilities

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking is a former professor at the Mathematics University of Cambridge. Hawking's first autobiography 'A Brief History in Time' gained international acclaim and even to this day is still considered a bestseller. Hawking contracted motor neurone disease in 1963, but did not allow this to detour him. He studied at Cambridge and went on to be brilliant researcher and professor at Gonville and Calus university. Wherein he won 12 honorary degrees. He was awarded a CBE in 1982 and was made a companion of Honour in 1989. Along with his many accolades, Hawking is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is also now director of research at the Centre of Theoretical Cosmology. Stephen Hawking makes it his dream to go into space someday. He has written many books and essays including General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey and The Large Structure of Space and Time.

http://www.hawking.org.uk

Ralph Braun

Ralph Braun was born in 1940 and was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of 7. His parents were told by the doctors that their son would never live a normal life and would require around-the-clock care. Upon hearing this, Ralph was determined to prove them wrong. He was also equally poised and determined to make life easier for disabled people with his and similar disabilities. His first step towards this goal was to develop the world's first battery-powered scooter. This initial design eventually evolved into the world's first wheelchair lift, complete with with hand controls and installable inside vehicles. This ultimately led Ralph to create his own wheelchair company, Braun Ability, which manufactures and then distributes wheelchairs all across the globe. Even in his latter years, Ralph, still driven by his never ending ambition to give disabled people equal chances, mobility and prospects, created the Mobility Act of 2013.

http://www.braunability.com/ralph-braun/

Lenin Moreno

Lenin Moreno was the President of Ecuador from 2007 to 2013. On May17th 2004 in New York, Moreno went to the local store to buy beard. On his way back home, he was assaulted by a robber who shot him in the snipe, leaving him paralysed and unable to walk. During his recuperation Moreno witnessed the shocking discrimination and prejudice that people with his disability encounter in everyday life. He was also appalled at the treatment of people with disabilities in his home country of Ecuador, most of whom were only surviving on very little benefits and food hand outs, and the constant stigma in Ecuador that having a disability was seen as a divine punishment by God. This was a devastating shock to Moreno as he had come from an extremely wealthy family and had never before seen how badly disabled people were ostracised.

 Refusing to let his disability get him down, Moreno tried seeing the lighter side of life to mask his pain and, after two agonising years, finally got himself into a wheelchair. Moreno became a motivational speaker and encouraged people to change the way that they view disability. He also wrote five books on laughter therapy.

In 2007, he was elected President of Ecuador and set up Ecuador's first ever survey on disabled people. He sent surveyors into rural and remote parts of the country and found that most Ecuadorians with disabilities were living off $96 a year. In 2010, he took to the television in an effort to try to ease the fears of his people when Vice President Correa had been captured by coup plotters.

In the same year, he also won the Noble Peace Prize for assisting disabled people in Ecuador.  

http://legacy.pitchengine.com/eo_integration/lenin-moreno-paraplegic-vice-president-of-ecuador--nobel-prize-nominee

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr was the 26th and youngest President of United States. He was also a soldier, historian and explorer. He also suffered from asthma and had difficulty breathing at times.  He was elected the President of the United States at 42 years old. He was liked by many of the American people for his energetic and "cowboy" persona, but at the same time he was also very courageous and fearless. He was very caring about the people and always tried to do good by his people and serve them with dignity and respect. 

During the Spanish-American war which was fought over control of the border between the US and the Gulf of Mexico, Roosevelt saw active service as lieutenant colonel of the Rough Riders Regiment. He even led the US attack against the Spanish forces in San Juan. 

Whilst in office, Roosevelt saw his Presidential position as a means of helping to solve the country's economic difficulties and bridging between the rich and the poor.  To help achieve this, Roosevelt fixed the need for a quick mode of transport between the Atlantic and the Pacific by installing the Panama Canal. This also prevented enemy nations from establishing military bases in the Caribbean and helped the US to intervene in Latin America.

Despite his typically hard-hitting and militaristic thinking, Roosevelt acted diplomatically during the Russo-Japanese war and even Goodwill aid all across the affected countries. For this selfless and noble act, he was awarded the Noble Prize.

He was also a big environmentalist and initiated various policies to protect the trees and to improve agricultural standards in the West. Perhaps one of the most iconic acts was when he went hunting in the woods and refused to shoot a baby bear. This act inspired the creation of the teddy bear toy that is very well known and popular even to this very day. 

http://www.biography.com/people/theodore-roosevelt-9463424

Donald Sutherland

Donald Sutherland is a famous Canadian actor with a media career that has lasted for over 40 years. In his early years, he was very sick. He had rheumatic fever, hepatitis and polio. As a distraction, Sutherland developed a love for media and script reading and has become a very successful actor and has appeared in more than 130 films. In 2000, Sutherland was nominated for a place on the Walk of Fame. He was known as Canada's youngest radio producer at 14. In 1967 he starred in The Dirty Dozen, in 1970 Sutherland starred as Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in MASH the movie and as tank commander Sgt. Oddball in Kelly's Heroes. His most recent works are The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

In 1958 Sutherland went to England to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He then left in 1960. He was also very ill with Meningitis in 1979 and very nearly died and he claims to have actually reached the afterlife for a brief time. He also appeared in Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1978 and it's remake in 1994. He was also nominated for three Best Picture Oscar for his work in three films: MASH in 1970, Ordinary People in 1980 and JFK in 1991. 

He thanks his various diseases, disabilities and health complications for his success throughout the years and once said that without it, he would not be where he is today.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000661/bio/ 

History of Scoliosis

The first reported case of scoliosis dates back as far as 3500 BC, when most people believed that having scoliosis was a punishment by God for committing acts of evil. In 1750, the world's first spinal hospital was opened in Switzerland. It treated children who suffered from scoliosis and other various spinal afflictions. The world's first ever back brace, the Jurymast brace, was also developed here.

In the mid 19th century, Jules Guerin developed a back brace made from plaster of Paris. The procedure proved to be very successful and very popular among patients with scoliosis but many of his colleagues disliked his method of repairing scoliosis and had him exiled to Belgium. 

It was not until the 1900s that scientists actually begun ways of trying to heal scoliosis rather than simply weaken the effects. 

In 1880, Lewis Sayre developed a new kind plaster of Paris cast: one that could be used and applied whilst standing up. They were carefully applied whilst the patient stood up via a type of suspension device. The idea was that by walking around whilst in the plaster cast, the rotation of such an activity would place the deformed section of the spine back into place.














1895 allowed for the first ever scoliosis x-ray to be developed. This has helped to better understand what a deformed spine affected by scoliosis actually looked like from inside of the body. This helped paved the way for technology relating to helping people with scoliosis, such as better defined x-rays, faster healing processes and less painful operation percussions.

In 1911, the world's first attempt at spinal fusion was made. It was based around the theory that if you used steel rods preoperative traction jackets, wire and hooks to fuse the spine back into shape, the effects of scoliosis could be minimilised. It was first attempted on a patient with terbukulosis. The patient was then sealed inside of a cast for 6 months in order to ensure the healing process. The operation was scrapped when it was shown that such a procedure had no healing or quality of life benefits, if anything it actually increased the damage and limitations caused by scoliosis.

Scoliosis Research

Scoliosis Research

Scoliosis is a deformity of the spine, which can have an effect on a person's day-to-day life and prevents them from partaking in a wide range physical  activities, such as running for long distances without getting tired, lifting heavy objects and acrobatics. Scoliosis also pushes the spine outwards, making a person's body seem out to shape. Scoliosis also limits a person's physical growth and can make a person permanently diminutive. Scoliosis is an illness with an unknown cause, some scoliosis sufferers have no identifiable afflictions associated with it, whereas some have lots of signs that they are a scoliosis sufferer. 

There is as of yet no cure of scoliosis, however the illness can be reduced or treated. For example, tittainium rods placed inside a scoliosis sufferers's back can help relive the pain of scoliosis but it still has all of the side-effects associated with the illness. Aside from this, a back brace is applied so as to have the same effect as the titanium rods, only the back brace does not go directly inside of the back, but just sits over it. 

Scoliosis is not contagious and cannot spread from person to person. It doesn't always occur as a child, it can happen at any stage in a person's life. It also cannot be heredity, spread from parent to child, and therefore a pregnant mother with scoliosis has no risk of transferring it to her unborn child. 

  

http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BI108/BI108_2008_Groups/group14/pages/history.html

This is an article from the Mail Online. There are similarities between this tagline for the upcoming Stephen Hawkins documentary-movie and my personal story, such as my skills for example my vocabulary, my imagination and my writing skills. T've personally watched the trailer linked to this article. I found the trailer to be very interesting and gave me a fascinating insight into the struggles and trials that Stephen Hawking has had to endure in order to achieve his dreams and how and why he strives to uncover the secrets of existence, and what has kept him going through all of the dark times.  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2355621/Stephen-Hawking-presents-moving-documentary-illness-genius.html

Scoliosis - Curvature of the Spine

This is a documentary on YouTube about scoliosis and how it affects the spine in various ways and the damage that can occur from this. I found this useful because it helped me to gain a greater understanding of the other ways that scoliosis affect it's sufferers.

Scottish Independence

This is my Blogger publication of my Powerpoint presentation of the results of a questionnaire and survey that my group conducted on the referendum on Scottish independence and if the students at our college thought that Scotland would function better as an independent nation or not. Below is the Powerpoint document that I created to emphasise the questions and results that we found by going around the college and asking questions. 

 

These graphs and pie charts are meant to represent the ratio of students who answered yes or no to our questions about Scottish independence. For the most of the graphs and pie charts the answer is predominantly yes for independence in Scotland. However, the answer changes in the final question with half saying yes and half saying no. 

Production Research

Call Sheet

A call sheet is essentially a sheet of paper that film or TV producers give to the cast of the specific film or TV programme so that they know what to do and in what scene. This also makes creating a film or programme considerably easier because the cast know what to do so that it is fresh in their minds. Without a call sheet, I personally think that making programmes or films would take longer because the actors would need to rehearse their lines more frequently and other participants, for example in a documentary, would have to wait for the host/s to remember what to ask them.

Risk Assessment

A risk assessment is a test of all of the objects around us that could potentially cause us harm. In the media sense of the word, it means that all aspects of a studio or background meets acceptable safety standards and that suitable measures are taken if the setting for the TV or film contains unsafe and even life-threatening features that could put the participants in danger. This is essential to ensuring that every measure has been taken so that the film or TV show is a great work while making sure that the actors are safe from injury whilst on the set or in rehearsal. Without it, I personally think that there would not be as many films or TV programmes as there are because I think that not as many actors would be willing to take the risk of injury or even death.