A Blatant Pitch for Help and Assistance Technology Explained

I don’t provide a lot of specific detail about my family in my posts. My daughter and son have been the subject of a few articles, but I have not shared that my four-year-old daughter is profoundly autistic. No one knows for sure what the future holds for her, but right now she is non-verbal and well behind her peers. She’s very engaging and smart; there’s just a disconnect in her awareness of what’s happening in the world and between her brain and her body (I think).?

So yes, this is ultimately a pitch for some help. A GoFundMe link is included below.

But here’s some context.

It’s estimated that at least 1 in 4 people in the US have some sort of disability. This ranges from partial blindness to full-on paralysis. Some 20 million need assistance for basic living needs from adaptive devices to care takers.?

Not surprising, this has become a huge industry and is steadily growing. The average life expectancy has risen over the years, but not necessarily our health.?We’re living longer, but we need more help to do so.

Medical care as an industry makes up nearly 20% of the GDP, or $4.5 Trillion. The irony is the growing number of people with disabilities has a negative impact on the GDP, but this seems to be offset by the growth of the medical industry.?

Still, that’s roughly an average of $20K per person in the US, or about 25% of the average yearly household income. Otherwise stated, an insane amount.?Due to the ACA and the expansion of Medicare, only about 11% of the US population is uninsured (largest number is in Texas). The rest are roughly equally split between having private and government insurance coverage.

But deductibles and co-insure can still be very high. Out of pocket costs can easily reach into the 10’s of $Thousands. And that’s if the procedures or treatments are even covered by insurance.

Patients are suffering but the medical facilities and providers are doing just fine.

One aspect of the medical industry is Adaptive Equipment, or Assistance Technologies. This has become a relatively large industry. These are the items most of us don’t think a lot about: wheelchairs, modified vehicles, prosthetics, communication devises; devices and equipment that people rely on to be independent or just survive.?This is a $20Billion or more global industry with a steady growth projection.

Like us, many rely on therapists to restore or maintain their abilities, from walking to feeding themselves. My daughter is in PT, OT and Speech Therapy four or five days a week.

Therapists are a special bunch. It takes a lot of study to get certified, but they can earn a good living. A good therapist is priceless. They can often make the difference whether someone will walk or not, or even be independent.

1 in 50 children will receive a diagnoses of being on the autism spectrum. It’s still unclear if therapies work or if improvement is just a matter of time. The difficulty is that there’s nothing that can be definitively measured. Severity and progress are subjective and anecdotal. Insurance is reluctant to cover many treatments, especially if they’re considered unproven or experimental.

But as a parent, you do whatever you can do to help your child no matter how anecdotal or experimental the treatment is. We’ve tried a quite a few, a will likely try a lot more.

Stem cell treatment is not necessarily new, and trials have been performed to treat autism with mixed results. But it’s worth a try.

So, I’m asking for help from the LinkedIn community: financial help. What we don’t spend on the stem cell treatment will be used on other therapies or go to help other parents with the same struggles.

Here the link to our GoFundMe page.

https://gofund.me/8606f198

I thank you in advance.