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Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day 2022
Today, Friday 13 May we are marking Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day 2022 (SCIAD)
We lead this annual event to raise awareness of spinal cord injury and highlight the challenges spinal cord injured (SCI) people face on a daily basis.
This year’s theme is all about the everyday challenges faced by SCI people. We know that SCI is devastating for every person and in a split second, you can lose your independence, your freedom and sometimes even your reason for staying alive.
With the challenges SCI people face hitting an all-time high throughout the past two years, we know even the most basic freedoms have been taken away from our members; leaving the house, having dinner with friends, and even getting carers in to support them with their everyday life.
For SCI people, these challenges are a part of everyday life, even outside the confines of the pandemic and as life is getting slowly back to normal, for SCI people, this happens even slower.
Life doesn’t suddenly go back to normal for SCI people with barriers to accessibility, lack of access to care and general stigma around being disabled having a profound impact on quality of life.
Alongside our charity partners, we will be doing everything we can to support our members and help them overcome the daily challenges disabled people face in our society.
But we also want to celebrate those small wins, the mountains that spinal cord injured people and our community overcome every single day.
We asked some of our followers to share videos of their #EverydayMountains with us.
Misconceptions
There is a lack of knowledge around the public perception of spinal cord injury (SCI) and the challenges a person faces when they sustain an injury.
We recently carried out a YouGov survey of 1000 people which highlighted some misconceptions about SCI amongst the general public.
38% were unaware that depending on their level of injury, some people who sustain a SCI are able to walk again
39% of those surveyed did not believe a SCI person would be able to drive a car
It was uncovered that the general public had a lack of understanding around the many issues a person can experience following a spinal cord injury such as the ability to control skin temperature, to retain memories, or even to talk.
The data also suggested a lack of knowledge around how much a person’s breathing is affected by SCI. An injury can lead to an impairment of the respiratory system and paralysis of the muscles which enable effective breathing.
How to get involved
We would like our members and the spinal cord injured community to share ‘your everyday mountain’ today.
To get involved, tweet us and tell us your everyday mountain using the hashtag #EverydayMountains #SCIAD22 and tag SIA at @spinalinjuries (Twitter), @spinal_injuries (Instagram) and Spinal Injuries Association (Facebook).
We hope that you will join us in raising awareness of SCI.
Thank you for supporting SIA.