114 PHYSICAL DISABILITY AND CHRONIC DISEASES A disability is a condition or function which is significantly damaged, substantially limiting a person s major life activities. The term refers to individual functioning, including physical, sensory, cognitive, intellectual impairment, mental illness, and various types of chronic diseases. Astigmatism is the medical term that refers to the shape of an eye, which is more curved than it should be. This causes blurred vision at all distances. Myopia impedes your ability to see distant objects clearly, while presbyopia limits your clear vision of nearby objects. blindness: cecit to clog: intasare deaf: sordo limb: arto 234 diFFicUlties Physical disabilities Physical disability can be divided into a number of sub-categories: Mobility and physical impairments. They refer to people with upper or lower limb(s) disability, or disability in coordinating different organs of the body. This disability can be inborn, acquired with age, or the effect of a disease. Spinal cord disability mostly occurs due to severe accidents. An injury higher on the spinal cord can cause paralysis affecting all the limbs (tetraplegia or quadriplegia); an injury that occurs lower down the spinal cord may only affect a person s lower body and legs (paraplegia). Vision impairments. A lot of people suffer from various minor (astigmatism , presbyopia, myopia ) to serious vision impairments (blindness). Hearing impairments. These include people that are completely or partially deaf. Deafness can be evident at birth or occur later in life from several biological causes. Chronic diseases A chronic disease is one that persists for a long time and thus becomes a disability. It cannot be prevented by vaccines or cured with medication. Some of the most common chronic diseases are: Cystic fibrosis. The body produces thick and sticky mucus that can clog the lungs and obstruct the pancreas, as well as affect the liver, kidneys, and intestine. Cystic fibrosis can be life-threatening, and people with this condition tend to have a shorter than normal life span; Muscular dystrophy is a group of diseases that cause progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass; Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system. It is thought to be an autoimmune disorder, a condition in which the body attacks itself by mistake; Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and that causes loss of muscle control. Chronic kidney disease involves a gradual loss of kidney functions.