Muscles & Mobility The Physio Clinic Prospect
We received a flyer from Kate Seeliger Neurological & Vestibular Physiotherapist at The Physio Clinic Prospect for more details click on button below.
Many Post-Polio survivors can experience fatigue, weakness, pain, imbalance, falls & disturbed sleep. LOOKING FOR A SOLUTION? Exercise may be able to help! Exercise has many health benefits for polio survivors. Goals of exercise may include improving and/or maintaining an individual’s mobility and function, maximising their independence and providing relief from pain. Consideration must be given to stabilising weak limbs, supplementing strength, protecting joints, normalising movement patterns, reducing unnecessary load and pain and accommodating ongoing atrophy/ weakness
Polio SA Summer Newsletter 2021
In this edition
Disability Doesn't Discriminate Update
Greens Plan An Accessible Australia
Congratulations Raja
Building Better Homes A National Building Code for All Australians
Assistive Tech Equipment Donated
Managing Muscles and Mobility
Community Info Sessions Coming Soon
Polio SA & Polio Australia
Community Information Sessions - Late effects of Polio
Monday 21st March 2021 West Adelaide Football Club 57 Milner Rd Richmond SA
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Victor Harbor
Thursday 24th March 2022 Port Augusta
Venues to be confirmed and guest speakers more details to follow soon
World Polio Day 24th October 2021
News from Polio Australia
Each year, Global Citizen organises an event for World Polio Day. They engage other organisations to join them, including Polio Australia. While the main focus of the event is to encourage government towards “one last push” to global vaccination access and therefore towards eradication of polio, they also include a polio survivor talking about the real-life experience of polio and its late effects. This year’s lived experience speaker is none other than our own Gary Newton.
While the event is usually at Parliament House (and usually has champagne and finger food), it’s going virtual for the second year in a row. The loss of champagne and snacks is a shame, but the huge advantage is that people can view the event from across the country.
It’s at 4pm Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time on Monday 25th October. 3.30pm for South Australia Full details are here: https://www.polioaustralia.org.au/world-polio-day-2021. Hope you can make it!
Polio Awareness Month - Light Up Orange Campaign October
Light Up Orange Campaign - Polio Awareness Month October
Polio SA we have Adelaide Oval lighting up Orange in support of Polio awareness, late effects of Polio and Unley Town Hall from 11-13th October, Victor Harbor Council Main street Sculpture frm 11-17th October.
See below media release from Polio Australia
Polio Australia Media Release
Media Release
22 September 2021
Forgotten, but not gone
Polio Awareness Month calls on Australia to remember survivors
Polio, a disease that affected millions of children in the twentieth century – including the likes of Alan Alda and Joni Mitchell and, closer to home, Kerry Packer and Kim Beazley – has largely been forgotten in Australia. The catchcry of Polio Awareness Month is “We’re Still Here!” It’s a reminder that, while Australia hasn’t seen a polio outbreak for several decades, many people are still living with its effects.
Every October, Polio Awareness Month recognises the tens of thousands of polio survivors in Australia. This year, we’re lighting up landmarks in orange, protecting ourselves from another virus with orange face masks, and spreading the word that polio outbreaks may be gone but their effects linger.
The Late Effects of Polio include progressive muscle weakness, breathing difficulty, debilitating fatigue, chronic pain and swallowing disorders. Even those who had a mild case of polio – and some who were unaware they were ever infected – can develop these symptoms many years later.
With polio outbreaks now a distant memory, these late effects are little-known even among doctors and other health professionals. Many survivors are dismissed as simply “getting old,” while others are given unhelpful or even detrimental treatments.
Author and poet Gayle Kennedy, a Wongaibon woman who wrote of her experience with polio in the anthology “Growing Up Disabled in Australia,” knows what it’s like for post-polio symptoms to be misunderstood by health professionals. “Nobody knows much about it, nobody knows what we go through,” she says. “Because we’re old, we’re kind of pushed aside.”
Some polio survivors are themselves unaware of polio’s late effects. Many struggle to manage daily tasks with nothing to explain their symptoms.
Gillian Thomas OAM, Polio Australia’s president and a survivor of polio herself, says, “What’s missing is the awareness – health professionals know little to nothing about polio, and polio survivors don’t know where to turn for answers. Polio Australia is trying to increase that awareness, and get the information into the right hands.”
Polio Australia provides education and resources for both health professionals and polio survivors. For more information, see www.polioaustralia.org.au.
Media contact:
Steph Cantrill
0466 719 613
Polio Australia is a not-for-profit organisation committed to standardising quality post-polio information across Australia. Our vision is that all polio survivors in Australia have access to appropriate health care and the support required to maintain independence and make informed life choices.
Polio Awareness Month began in 2010 in Australia, to align with existing international campaigns including World Polio Day on the 24th of the month. World Polio Day is focused on eradication of the virus, which remains endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Polio SA Spring newsletter 2021
Polio SA Spring newsletter 2021
Welcome to Polio SA Spring newsletter 2021
Polio SA AGM Reminder Sunday 19th September at 1pm Thebarton Community Centre
Polio SA AGM Sunday 19th September 2021 at 1pm at Thebarton Community Centre open to all financial members of Polio SA
Polio SA AGM Sunday 19th September at 1pm at Thebarton Community Centre Cnr Ashwin Parade & South Rd Torrensville SA 5031
Guest speaker from My Aged Care and others to be confirmed
Have you thought about nominating to be on Polio SA Committee ?
Click on the link below to download the form and email to poliosa.office@gmail.com
or call 0466 893 402 for more details
Blessed Book by Esther Simbi
Esther releases her second book “Blessed” The follow-up to Beyond Calamity, Esther Simbi’s second book continues the story of her life journey as a woman and as a single mother with a disability from a refugee background living in Australia.
Contracting polio at the age of four, as a child Esther escaped the Sudan civil war and spent almost two decades in refugee camps in Uganda before being resettled in the suburbs of Adelaide. In this book she writes about the dangers and hardships for women in the refugee camps, finding her feet in a new country, navigating family and relationships, living with post-polio syndrome, the grief of losing a child, and raising two daughters while juggling work, study, writing and political aspirations.
Vividpublishing.com.au/blessed
The follow-up to Beyond Calamity, Esther Simbi’s second book continues the story of her life journey as a woman and as a single mother with a disability from a refugee background living in Australia.
Contracting polio at the age of four, as a child Esther escaped the Sudan civil war and spent almost two decades in refugee camps in Uganda before being resettled in the suburbs of Adelaide. In this book she writes about the dangers and hardships for women in the refugee camps, finding her feet in a new country, navigating family and relationships, living with post-polio syndrome, the grief of losing a child, and raising two daughters while juggling work, study, writing and political aspirations.
Esther gives a frank account of relationships, racism, financial insecurity, the stigma of having a physical disability and being a single mother, and the practical aspects of day-to-day life, like budgeting, preparing meals and getting around.
She is an advocate for social justice, particularly for African women with disabilities, a prominent community speaker and has represented the Dignity Party in the South Australian state elections.
Esther Simbi is living proof that disability and disadvantage need not define us. She has overcome incredible odds: losing health, family, home, and community; surviving rape; and living as a refugee for nineteen years. She was the first African woman from a refugee background to run for parliament in South Australia, where she represented people with disabilities. Education, she believes, is the key to empowerment, and she works tirelessly to empower those who do not have a voice, or have not yet found their voice, to lessen inequality and disadvantage.
To purchase Esther’s book Blessed click on the button below
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