Gelisim News

On the acceptance of application made by Gülşah Konakoğlu, a lecturer at the Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation, she was invited to the 23rd ENPHE conference in Paris in September together with her thesis mentor Asst. Prof. Gülşah Kınalı. According to the results of the competition, Konakoğlu's thesis was among the top 5 theses.

“MOTHERS OF DISABLED CHILDREN CAN EXPERIENCE PHYSICAL TRAUMA”

Lecturer Gülşah Konakoğlu, who carried out her dissertation study on mothers of children with disabilities who constitute an important risk group in terms of psychological, social and physical burdens, said: “In the literature, a lot of research has been done on the psychological traumas of mothers of children with disabilities, but we have not seen enough information about their physical traumas. Therefore, in our study, we focused on the physical exposures of the mothers of children with disabilities and we aimed to evaluate the early signs of cumulative trauma disorders such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (wrist nerve compression) and to prepare the foundation for the protective rehabilitation programs to be established.”

“DISABILITY MAY OCCUR IF NOT TREATED”

Konakoğlu stating that mothers with physical disabilities experienced cumulative trauma disorders in the hand and wrist regions due to excessive physical loading, added: “Late detection of these disorders leads to progression of symptoms, increased treatment time and cost. In some cases, disability occurs. Therefore, in our study, when we measure the hand grasping force of the mothers of handicapped children and the muscles acting on the forearm and the hand gripping force simultaneously, we found that the results obtained were lower than the healthy mothers of the other group.”

“PHYSICAL THERAPY AND REHABILITATION SHOULD BE GIVEN PRIORITY”

Emphasizing that, preventive physiotherapy and rehabilitation should be given priority in order to prevent physically disabled mothers from being exposed to cumulative trauma, Konakoğlu, ended her speech as follows:

 “It is needed to develop technological devices that help to reduce workload of people with disabilities. Mothers with disabled children are crushed under the burden of having disabled children. Therefore, bodily micro-traumas are reaching the disease size over time. Early prevention of these diseases is a social issue. We aim to deepen our work in the future and conduct social responsibility projects for mothers of children with disabilities. Rehabilitation for mothers with disabled children; is a social activity that must be carried out together with The Ministry of Health, universities, municipalities and research and development teams. We believe that these efforts will contribute greatly to the development level of our country.”