by Rab Bruce’s Spider

While doing some research for a recent blog post, I came across the alarming statistic that around 20% of the population of the UK are living with a disability of some sort. Additionally, only around 17% of those people had been born with the disability. I did a quick calculation which, if I’ve got my sums right, suggests that anyone reading this article has around a 15% chance of developing a disability either as a result of an accident, illness or the simple ageing process.

Don’t panic. You still have an 85% chance of avoiding that unfortunate state but, if you are one of the lucky ones, there are still some things you should know.

None of us knows what it is really like to live with a disability until it happens to us or unless we live or work closely with disabled people. That, for many of us with a disability, is the biggest problem we face; it is not so much adapting to a life which creates problems in everyday situations, it is dealing with other people.