Polio is a neurologic illness that lasts a lifetime, a chronic disorder that manifests its late effects throughout the entire body without regard to the type of polio originally diagnosed or the extent of acute polio residual or recovery.
Worldwide there are 20 million polio survivors, seven percent of the world's population.
In North America there are an estimated 1.8 million polio survivors, and half are in their forties, fifties and sixties. (Compared to the 2000 U.S. Census, that 1.8 million is more than double the population of the county of San Francisco.)
As early as 1875 medical literature reported cases of polio's late effects, but medical treatment and proper management of those effects were unknown until the last two decades.
Polio's late effects occur in at least 75% of paralytic and 40% of non-paralytic polio survivors about 15-60 years after the poliovirus attack.
Only about 20% of medical providers presently have knowledge about postpolio.
ANESTHESIA
Summary of Anesthesia Issues for Post-Polio Patients... Selma H. Calmes, MD, Olive View/UCLA Medical Center, provides cautionary advice for polio survivors.
http://www.post-polio.org/ipn/anes.html
SHOULDERS Save our Shoulders: A guide for Polio Survivors (Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Albert Einstein Medical Center, 1994) www.einstein.edu/polioandmobility
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