By Tan Boon Yeow and Grace Lum
According to the Ministry of Social and Family Development, over ten percent of the resident population fifty years and older are physically or intellectually disabled. Disability extends well beyond a person’s actual limitations and can impact the emotional state, well-being, sense of self, and family, and often far beyond what we can easily identify.
Rebuilding Meaning
Mr X is a forty-five-year-old man who sustained a traumatic paraplegia*. Post-accident, his world crashed. He lost not just all sensation from his waist down and the function of his legs, but also his loved ones and his vocation. His wife left him, bringing their daughter with her. He sought physical restoration by various means, including attending faith healing sessions.
He underwent extensive rehabilitation targeted not only at his physical functions, but also at helping him re-discover his role in society. Today, almost two years after his accident, he holds a driving license for the disabled. He has returned to work as a driver who transports workers in his retro-fitted vehicle. His daughter visits him on the weekends. Most amazingly, he is representing Singapore in the international sports arena for the disabled, and has found new meaning and zest in life.
- A/Prof Tan Boon Yeow
Commentary
They don’t friend me.
A man on a wheelchair looks longingly over the parapet, his world shrouded in a darkness that echoes his emotional state. The words shed a stark light onto his misery — they don’t friend me.
The man watches a group of people sitting around a table. Their togetherness contrasts with the man’s aloneness. Their world is coloured and they are surrounded by leafy green trees. The man’s wheelchair sits on hard, unyielding, grey concrete.
They don’t friend me is almost infantile, a phrase more commonly associated with young children. And yet, perhaps adults think such phrases more often than we know, especially the socially isolated elderly, or the functionally impaired. By Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, above our physiological and safety needs, the next level is the need for love and belonging, reflecting a universal human urgency for connection.
As healthcare workers, we are used to caring for a person’s physical needs. For “functional status”, we may write chair-bound or bed-bound or ADL dependent. However, we may misjudge the true import of our patient’s illnesses. Has our patient lost his social circle? Perhaps he can no longer pursue a favorite hobby? Has he lost confidence and self-esteem along with his career? We need to be alert to the true impact of illnesses on one’s personhood. Only then might we maintain our compassion, see beyond the illnesses, connect at a deeper level with our patients, and serve them where they are truly in need.
—-A/Prof Tan Boon Yeow and Dr Grace Lum
*A traumatic paraplegia refers to paralysis of both legs following a physical accident.
Tan Boon Yeow practices in a community hospital and has a particular interest in geriatric care, and he is actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. His greatest joy is spending time with his family and friends and with God, and he strives to find time to do it all.
Grace Lum works with home-bound patients and ambulatory patients in a community hospital. She is also a wife and mummy to a toddler and a handsome brown dog.
The commentary and vignette were reproduced with permission from the book “Being Human, Stories from Family Medicine” edited by Cheong Pak Yean and Ong Chooi Peng and published in 2021 by the College of Family Physicians Singapore.
Pictures of illness experiences were drawn by NUS medical students in workshops conducted from 2012-2017 by A/Prof Cheong Pak Yean. Senior family physicians subsequently shared vignettes and commentaries based on the pictures.
