KARACHI, Aug 31: A large number of people visited the Al-Umeed Rehabilitation Association’s centre for cerebral palsy on Saturday under its open-house programme.

Cerebral palsy is a non-progressive condition which is not contagious or hereditary and is usually caused by lack of oxygen supply to the brain, before, during or shortly after the birth. The oxygen deficiency affects the child’s coordination and it can be from mild to severe, making it difficult for the child to practice skills of daily life. The intelligence is not necessarily affected.

The AURA’s Cerebral Palsy Complex, built at the cost of over Rs 15 million, in Gulistan-i-Jauhar presently has 65 students and provides services like physical therapy based on Bobath approach, occupational therapy, speech training, special education and use of computers, and the additional services being introduced are vocational training, hydrotherapy, and snozelen, which is a a multisensory stimulation programme.

The AURA complex provides exclusively designed programme for these wheel-chair bound severed to moderate, physically / mentally compromised special children’s is according to their individual needs.

The students are taught to perform activities of daily living — toilet training, feeding, dressing, brushing teeth, washing, bathing etc — which not only help in improving quality of life of the special child and take him / her towards becoming independent and in turn rehabilitates the whole family.

As almost all the students affected by the cerebral palsy have difficulty in movement and are restricted to the wheel-chairs designed specially according to the individual’s requirement, they are assisted by at least one therapist all the time, and sometime even by more than one therapist.

Besides the regular fully trained staff, the final year students of Occupational Therapy from Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) also come to the complex as “hand on” training for six weeks on rotation. Their service is also beneficial for their studies as they get credit hours.

Presently the AURA complex is only offering the day-care services and serving only to the children living in Karachi but under its proposed second phase, residential training centre for the children residing outside Karachi is to be built.

The AURA representatives Aban Jamal, Dr Rubi Abbasi and Dr Habiba Hassan said now that the Phase I of the AURA Cerebral Palsy Complex that was serving the local children was working smoothly, the AURA was planning to build the Phase II of the complex — Residential Training Centre and Respite Home — that would cost around Rs 12 million. They said that the entire amount of Rs 15 million for the Phase-I had been generated by the donations.