Too often, women living with disability are left out of the menopause and midlife women’s health conversation and, as a result, put their symptoms down to pre-existing health conditions, not realising that they could actually be entering perimenopause or menopause.
Katie invited Emma Livingstone, founder of Up – The Adult Cerebral Palsy Movement, to the podcast to share her own story and to explain why it is so important for women, in particular those with cerebral palsy, to have their own pathways within healthcare.
Emma talks about her own experience living with a long-term disability and why she was inspired to found Up and campaign for better understanding and support from the medical community and the wider community.
Some of the key information from this episode:
Up is the only UK charity that’s focused solely on adults with cerebral palsy. They want a society where cerebral palsy is not a barrier for adults to live full and active lives.
We understand more now that cerebral palsy can be degenerative, and there are other comorbidities that happen as you age with cerebral palsy. But until about five years ago, CP was still being recognized solely as a childhood disability. Children grow into adults, and we are learning more and more about what happens to those adults as they live with long-term conditions like cerebral palsy.
My co-founder Miriam was my long-suffering physio as she took me through my rehabilitation after hip surgery
