Motor

Cerebrovascular accident (CVA)

A stroke, or “brain attack,” occurs when blood flow to a specific area of the brain is interrupted. The lack of oxygenated blood in that region leads to the destruction of brain tissue within minutes. There are two main causes of stroke:

Obstruction of a blood vessel: This occurs when a clot blocks a blood vessel, leading to ischemia.
Rupture of a blood vessel: This case, known as hemorrhage, occurs when a blood vessel breaks.

  • Nature of disability : Acquired
  • Age group concerned : While the average age at which a stroke occurs is 74, 25% of patients are under 65 and 10% under 45. In recent years, the number of strokes affecting young people has risen significantly.
  • Number of people affected : 150,000 people suffer a stroke every year, with 40,000 deaths, it is the leading cause of acquired disability in France, with patients suffering serious after-effects.

Symptoms

  • Partial or total paralysis of a part of the body, difficulties with coordination and movement
  • Language impairment -> paralysis of speech muscles, impaired comprehension

Examples of obstacles encountered during navigation

  • Websites, web browsers and authoring tools that do not provide full keyboard support.
  • Insufficient time to respond or complete tasks, such as filling in online forms.
  • Controls, including links with text images, that do not have equivalent text alternatives.
  • Missing visual and non-visual orientation cues, page structure and other navigational aids.
  • Inconsistent, unpredictable and overly complicated navigation mechanisms and page functions.
  • Clickable areas too small.

Solutions for accessibility

To use the Web, people with physical disabilities often use specialised hardware and software such as:

  • Ergonomic or specially designed keyboard or mouse.
  • Head pointer, mouth stick and other aids to help with typing.
  • On-screen keyboard with trackball, joysticks or other pointing devices.
  • Switches operated by foot, shoulder, sip and puff or other movements.
  • Voice recognition, eye tracking and other approaches to hands-free interaction.
  • They may need more time to type, click or perform other interactions, and they may type single keystrokes in sequence rather than typing simultaneous keystrokes (‘chords’) to activate commands.
  • People with physical disabilities may find it difficult to click on small areas and are more likely to make mistakes when typing and clicking. Providing large clickable areas, sufficient time to complete tasks and error correction options for forms are important design aspects.
  • Another important aspect is the display of the current focus and the ability to switch from one block to another easily.
  • The content is compatible with current and future user tools.
  • operating system functions or software tools that recognise and compensate for involuntary movements such as tremors and spasms.

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