Handbook On Late Effects Of Polio Myelitis 1984
Physicians have always learnedfrom their patients, especially if they were seeking wisdom for total healing. This handbook for physicians and polio survivors is truly a document that comes from the partnership of patient and physician.
There are many new medical problems that people who had poliomyelitis twenty or more years in the past are beginning to
experience. Many of these new problems are not unique to people with polio residuals, but there appear to be some that are. As with many areas of clinical medicine, particularly with chronic diseases and degenerative disorders, scientific research is slow and the questions are only recently being asked.
This handbook is not a scientific document but an attempt to convey to a wide group of medical practitioners useful information about clinical problems associated with old polio based on the experiences of others.
I credit the collective experiences of the many post-polios and physicians who attended and participated in Rehabilitation Gazette’s two international post-polio conferences, participants at Warm Springs Research Symposium, and, of course, my own patients.
Scientific and scholarly information, as it is available and pertains to the subject, has been included in the handbook, particularly for various clinical investigators and other serious thinkers who wish to pursue further reading on selected topics. I hope that this information will be helpful to polio survivors and their physicians alike.
Frederick M. Maynard,M.D.
University Hospital
Ann Arbor, Michigan