Spastic Paraplegia Case Studies

The client, Janine Mills, is the director of care at St. Peter’s Residence, which is a long term care home that provides long term care services for a variety of patients whose ages range from 27 to 103[1]. All residents at St. Peter’s require long-term service as a result of either a physical or a mental disability which compromises the residents’ independence. St. Peter’s main goal is to enhance the residents’ life quality, which can be improved by reducing the residents’ dependence on the highly trained staff of St. Peter’s residence home [1]. Examples of residents that would benefit from becoming more independent are Bill and Betty who the client believes would benefit from being able to independently use the washing machine facilities at St. Peter’s [2].
Spastic paraplegia is an uncommon genetic disorder that causes slowly progressive weakness and increased muscle tone and spasticity (stiffness) of leg muscles [3]. This condition limits Bill’s movement as he cannot stand for a long period of time. Despite his condition, Bill has made progress in his recovery as he is regaining muscle strength and can stand for 1-2 minutes, yet his current condition limits Bill to using a manual wheelchair [2]. Bill’s manual wheelchair is his main method of transportation as Bill uses foot propulsion to navigate the wheelchair and thus he still utilizes his foot which aides in his own rehabilitation process [2]. Bill’s disability restricts him to only being able to complete his laundry every 3 weeks, which is something the client believes that Bill should be capable to do on a daily basis with the help of a certain