Children with special needs: Everyone can live a better life with proper care: experts : LAHORE:

Every person with special needs can live a better and meaningful life if proper diagnosis and treatment is provided, experts speaking at the inauguration of Centre for Advanced Medicine (CANMED) clinic said on Saturday.

Doctors, paramedics, parents of children with developmental disorders and staff from schools for special-needs children attended the event.

The clinic offers comprehensive evaluation and treatment of persons with developmental disorders, intellectual disabilities, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), opposite defiant disorder (ODD), learning disorder, language disorder and cerebral palsy.

The clinic, which will become operational on Monday, will also treat metabolic genetic syndromes and sleep and memory disorders.

Dr Sohail Khattak, the CANMED Clinic CEO, said that patients needed individual care and treatment. “Medicines for patients with the same disability can vary given the difference in there disability level. We are opening a specialised clinic in collaboration with two Canadian healthcare providers. A team of experts in Canada will be monitoring the cases through video link,” he said.

He said that the clinic would provide psychiatric and biological assessment of special-needs people.

Ashba Kamran, who runs a chain of schools for such children, said that the opening of the clinic was a good development. “It is high time parents realised that they need to invest in their children. My child was dyslexic and had a learning disability.

He is now leading a normal life because we invested time and money in his treatment,” she said.

She said that such children should not be called disabled. “They need attention. Right now, there is no clinic in the country where biological diagnoses are made. The clinic is good news for parents with special-needs children,” she said.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Khattak said that every disorder was unique. “Disorders are seldom diagnosed rightly here,” he said. He also said that cases of deafness were increasing due to cousin marriages. “It is time, we paid more attention to the next generation,” he said.


Source : The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2014