What is Disability?
The legal definition of disability is defined by the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) as follows:
A person has a disability for the purposes of this act if he/she has a physical or mental impairment, which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his/her ability to carry out normal day to day activities.
Impairment
Impairment covers both physical and mental impairments and includes sensory impairments, learning disabilities and mental illness. Some disabilities may not be immediately obvious such as diabetes or depression.
Long term effects
- Effects that have lasted at least 12 months; or
- Are likely to last at least 12 months; or
- Are likely to last for the rest of the life of the person affected.
- include those which are likely to reoccur. For example, an effect will be considered to be long term if it is likely both to recur, and to do so at least once beyond the 12-month period following the first occurrence.
The Act can also cover people with progressive conditions such as HIV, cancer or multiple sclerosis and those with "hidden" disabilities like dyslexia, heart disease, depression, diabetes, asthma and epilepsy, when those conditions mean that they experience some effect on their ability to undertake normal day-to-day activities.
Day-to-day activities
These are normal activities carried out by most people on a regular basis, and must involve one of the following broad categories:
- Mobility - moving around
- Manual dexterity
- Physical co-ordination
- Continence
- The ability to lift, carry or move ordinary objects
- Speech, hearing or eyesight
- Memory, ability to concentrate, learn or understand; or perception of the risk of physical danger
Facts and figures
- There are 10 million disabled adults in the UK covered by the DDA. This represents around 18% of the population.
- Over 6.8 million disabled people are of working age (19% of the working population.
- There are well over one million disabled people who want jobs but are out of work - many are skilled, with the same qualities as non-disabled people who have jobs.
- Only about 5% of disabled people use wheelchairs.
- Two-thirds of reasonable adjustments cost nothing.
- By the year 2010, 40% of the UK population will be over 45 - the age at which the incidence of disability begins to increase significantly.
