Disability
What is disability?
Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments, which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.
How does disability affect mental health?
People with a physical disability or physical health problem are more likely to experience a mental health problem. In contrast, people with mental health problems are more likely to experience physical health problems.
- More than 15 million people - 30% of the UK population - live with one or more long-term conditions, and more than 4 million of these people will also have mental health problems.
- People with long-term physical conditions are likelier to have lower well-being scores than those without.
- People with cancer, diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure are at greater risk of a range of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and PTSD.
- Of people with severe symptoms of mental health problems, 37.6% also have long-term physical conditions. This compares with 25.3% of people with no or few symptoms of a mental health problem.
Support
There a plenty of organisations that can help those with disabilities. If you know of any organisations that are not listed here and would like them to be, click here.
If you would like to see some national organisations that can help too, click here.
IAS - Information, Advice and Support Service
We offer free information, advice and support on all sorts of matters relating to special educational needs and disability (SEND), including education, health and social care. All our advisers are independently trained to provide you with accurate information about the law relating to SEND.
Your child does NOT need a formal diagnosis to access our support, in fact this is very often the case. If you have any concerns about your child or young person, or the support available to them, we can help.
That's Mental Mate!
