ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an account of the physical and medical problems faced by the young people. Such an account could easily be no more than a depressing and arid catalogue of impairments in which the personalities of the young people and the diversity and extent of their disabilities were totally obscured. The range of disorders included in the term ‘cerebral palsy’ can usually be classified into one of three main types: the spastic, the athetoid and the ataxic forms. Very few cerebral-palsied young people suffered from incontinence, although about 10 per cent needed help with toileting because of locomotor difficulties or poor hand control. One of the key factors we wished to look at was the effect of the severity of handicap on psychological functioning and social life, and this had therefore to be assessed as objectively as possible. The problem of obesity is frequent in teenagers who have severe mobility problems and are therefore unable to take enough exercise.
