The Contact | |
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Directed by | Philip Wrestler |
Starring | John Hurt Pauline Collins Wendy Richard |
Release date |
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Running time | 12 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The Contact is a 1963 British educational short film directed by Philip Wrestler. It stars John Hurt in one of his first film roles, as a physically disabled teenager with cerebral palsy. [1] The film was sponsored by the Spastics Society and was designed to educate and combat prejudice against disabled people among young people. [2] The film used Thomas Delarue School and also featured early appearances by Pauline Collins and Wendy Richard. [3]
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sensation, vision, hearing, and speech. Often, babies with cerebral palsy do not roll over, sit, crawl or walk as early as other children. Other symptoms include seizures and problems with thinking or reasoning. While symptoms may get more noticeable over the first years of life, underlying problems do not worsen over time.
Spasticity is a feature of altered skeletal muscle performance with a combination of paralysis, increased tendon reflex activity, and hypertonia. It is also colloquially referred to as an unusual "tightness", stiffness, or "pull" of muscles.
Hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) is a group of inherited diseases whose main feature is a progressive gait disorder. The disease presents with progressive stiffness (spasticity) and contraction in the lower limbs. HSP is also known as hereditary spastic paraparesis, familial spastic paraplegia, French settlement disease, Strumpell disease, or Strumpell-Lorrain disease. The symptoms are a result of dysfunction of long axons in the spinal cord. The affected cells are the primary motor neurons; therefore, the disease is an upper motor neuron disease. HSP is not a form of cerebral palsy even though it physically may appear and behave much the same as spastic diplegia. The origin of HSP is different from cerebral palsy. Despite this, some of the same anti-spasticity medications used in spastic cerebral palsy are sometimes used to treat HSP symptoms.
Scope is a disability charity in England and Wales that campaigns to change negative attitudes about disability, provides direct services, and educates the public. The organisation was founded in 1952 by a group of parents and social workers who wanted to ensure that their disabled children had the right to a decent education. Originally focused on cerebral palsy, Scope now embraces all conditions and impairment. Scope subscribes to the social model of disability rather than the medical model of disability – that a person is disabled by the barriers placed in front of them by society, not because of their condition or impairment.
The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome to fund research to improve human and animal health. The aim of the Trust is to "support science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone." It had a financial endowment of £29.1 billion in 2020, making it the fourth wealthiest charitable foundation in the world. In 2012, the Wellcome Trust was described by the Financial Times as the United Kingdom's largest provider of non-governmental funding for scientific research, and one of the largest providers in the world. According to their annual report, the Wellcome Trust spent GBP £1.1 billion on charitable activities across their 2019/2020 financial year. According to the OECD, the Wellcome Trust's financing for 2019 development increased by 22% to US$327 million.
Linda Down is an American woman born with cerebral palsy. She completed the 26.1 mile 1982 and 1984 New York City Marathon on crutches, because of her lack of motor coordination as well as muscle spasticity.
Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome was an American pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Company with his colleague Silas Burroughs in 1880, which is one of the four large companies to eventually merge to form GlaxoSmithKline. He left a large amount of capital for charitable work in his will, which was used to form the Wellcome Trust, one of the world's largest medical charities. He was a keen collector of medical artefacts which are now managed by the Science Museum, London, and a small selection of which are displayed at the Wellcome Collection.
The Wellcome Library is a free library and Museum based in central London. It was developed from the collection formed by Sir Henry Wellcome (1853–1936), whose personal wealth allowed him to create one of the most ambitious collections of the 20th century. Henry Wellcome's interest was the history of medicine in a broad sense and included subjects such as alchemy or witchcraft, but also anthropology and ethnography. Since Henry Wellcome's death in 1936, the Wellcome Trust has been responsible for maintaining the Library's collection and funding its acquisitions. The library is free and open to the public.
Tropical spastic paraparesis (TSP), is a medical condition that causes weakness, muscle spasms, and sensory disturbance by human T-lymphotropic virus resulting in paraparesis, weakness of the legs. As the name suggests, it is most common in tropical regions, including the Caribbean. Blood transfusion products are screened for human T-lymphotropic virus 1 (HTLV-1) antibodies, as a preventive measure.
Spastic diplegia is a form of cerebral palsy (CP) that is a chronic neuromuscular condition of hypertonia and spasticity—manifested as an especially high and constant "tightness" or "stiffness"—in the muscles of the lower extremities of the human body, usually those of the legs, hips and pelvis. Doctor William John Little's first recorded encounter with cerebral palsy is reported to have been among children who displayed signs of spastic diplegia.
"Spasticus Autisticus" is a song written by Ian Dury and co-written by Chaz Jankel, released both as a single and on Dury's second solo studio album Lord Upminster (1981).
Wellcome Collection is a museum and library based at 183 Euston Road, London, England, displaying a mixture of medical artefacts and original artworks exploring "ideas about the connections between medicine, life and art". Founded in 2007, the Wellcome Collection attracts over 550,000 visitors per year. The venue offers contemporary and historic exhibitions and collections, the Wellcome Library, a café, a bookshop and conference facilities. In addition to its physical facilities, Wellcome Collection maintains a website of original articles and archived images related to health.
ADAPT – Able Disabled All People Together is an Indian non-profit and non-governmental organization, working to help people with neuro-muscular and developmental disabilities. It was started on 2 October 1972 by Mithu Alur, to provide education and treatment services for the "spastics".
In medicine, the adjective spastic refers to an alteration in muscle tone affected by the medical condition spasticity, which is a well-known symptomatic phenomenon seen in patients with a wide range of central neurological disorders, including spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and multiple sclerosis (MS), as well as conditions such as "spastic colon." The word is derived via Latin from the Greek spastikos.
Laurence Clark is a British stand-up comedian, writer, actor, presenter, and disability rights campaigner. Laurence was born with cerebral palsy and uses his line of work to alter the general public's perceptions of disabled people.
Mithu Alur is the founder chairperson of The Spastic Society of India – now rechristened ADAPT – Able Disable All People Together. She is an educator, disability rights activist, researcher, writer and published author on issues concerning people with disability in India.
Spastic Society of Gurgaon covers within its scope the programs on occupational therapy, counseling, vocational training and psychotherapy of the children with autism, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability and multiple disabilities in Haryana, India. It is India's first non-profit disability sector organization which was awarded ISO certification by United Kingdom Accreditation Service: United Registrar of Systems for quality of services rendered by it. It also works in the field of imparting counseling and psychotherapy to the parents and guardians of the disabled children. Mass camps are conducted for welfare of children with disabilities. Multiple single window services like assistance in issuance of disability certificates, NIRAMAYA cashless insurance cards, medical check ups, distribution of medicines and medical aids are rendered to disabled people in such camps. Being sponsored by Haryana Government it undertakes disability audits of organizations for assessing accessibility compliance by them.
Ronald Charles MacKeith FRCP was a British paediatrician. MacKeith was prolific in his endeavours. He was principally known for establishing the first cerebral palsy advice clinic, which was to become in 1964, the larger and more comprehensive Newcomen Centre for disabled children in Guy's Hospital. He founded the British Paediatric Neurology Association and the medical journal, Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. His work gained recognition of the field of paediatric neurology as a science in several European countries.
Spastic can refer to: