A modern look: rehabilitation program for visually impaired veterans helps them adapt to new realities
What is the problem?
When a person loses their sight, they can find themselves in a state of stress as their life changes radically, and a helping hand becomes essential – literally and figuratively. Unfortunately, the state is not currently focused on the medical rehabilitation of soldiers who lost their sight due to injuries. The social aspect falls on the shoulders of family and friends, who themselves need help to understand what the world of a blind person is like.
What is the solution?
The public association "All-Ukrainian League of Organizations of Persons with Visual Disabilities – 'Modern View'" has initiated and implemented the Life After War project aimed at the rehabilitation of veterans who lost their sight while defending Ukraine. As part of the project, the team conducts field training and rehabilitation camps for service members who have lost sight, as well as their families.
The measures aimed at returning soldiers with vision loss to an independent life has been made possible with the financial support of the Oleksandr Tereshchenko International Charitable Foundation and the charity organization "We Will See Victory."
Mykola Dubov, vice-president of Modern View, told Rubryka about how the project came about and how it works, as well as the successes and problems of veterans who lost their sight during hostilities.
How does it work?
"We are the only ones in Ukraine who, since 2019, have been rehabilitating soldiers who lost their sight during the war"
Modern View was created back in 2013. The creators of the union were a group of activists with visual disabilities who represented non-governmental organizations from several regions of Ukraine. Over ten years of activity, the union has implemented many projects to support people with serious visual impairments. With time, members of the organization have become experts in issues of social adaptation, ensuring accessibility and rehabilitation of people with visual impairments, and have participated in the development of legislation related to issues of persons with disabilities.
Mykola Dubov is head of the Kharkiv regional organization UTOS and vice president of Modern View.
The history of rehabilitation camps for Ukrainian soldiers who lost their sight during hostilities begins in 2019. At that time, Oleksandr Tereshchenko, a soldier who became disabled during the defense of Donetsk Airport and then deputy minister for veterans' affairs; and Valerii Sushkevich, an adviser to the president of Ukraine on the protection of the rights of persons with disability addressed Modern View. The organization already had the experience of conducting about 20 physical education and rehabilitation camps for people with profound visual impairments, to conduct a pilot camp for soldiers who have lost their sight in hostilities in Ukraine's east.
The group worked to quickly prepare the appropriate program, determined the necessary disciplines, and found the trainers, material, and technical support. In September of the same year, the first rehabilitation and recovery meetings for veterans who lost their sight and their family members took place. Five veterans participated in the pilot meeting, during which veterans learned to live their lives anew. Following the full-scale invasion in 2022, work in this area was continued.
A veteran learns to walk with a cane.
Modern View is the only organization in Ukraine that, since 2019, has been rehabilitating soldiers who lost their sight in the war. The team comprises specialists with higher education in various fields and from different parts of Ukraine: speech therapists, psychologists, defectologists, rehabilitation specialists, lawyers, specialists in non-visual accessibility of computer equipment and mobile gadgets, spatial orientation specialists, physical therapists, and occupational therapists.
Most coaches participating in the Life After War project are people with profound visual impairments. For example, the team is currently mentored by a veteran with total vision loss who participated in the pilot meeting in 2019. "We understand the problems of our participants because we once overcame the obstacles that faced them in connection with the loss of sight," says Mykola Dubov, vice president of Modern View.
He notes that during the full-scale war, the service of rehabilitation camps has become more relevant also because Ukraine still lacks a state program for the social rehabilitation of soldiers who have lost their sight.
Rehabilitation usually ends at the medical level. All centers of so-called "comprehensive rehabilitation" – which have various forms of ownership – do not typically provide the necessary support to veterans with serious visual impairments. This particular field of activity is significantly different from working with veterans with amputations, disorders of the musculoskeletal system, or other injuries.
Life after the war must go on!
The program of rehabilitation and readaptation of veterans consists of several stages:
- Identifying military personnel who have lost their sight. This happens through the veteran community, military hospitals, and ophthalmology clinics, to which Modern View reaches out with information about its activities.
- Processing of information about potential participants, their living conditions, marital status, psychological state, education, readiness to study, additional health impairments, and circle of people who interact with the veteran. Dubov says there are no restrictions for participating in the camp, and the main thing is that a person has a desire to change their life, which is the main aim of the program's first stage. The second is the absence of medical contraindications for active exercises. The physical condition of the participants is, of course, taken into account since the rehabilitation program includes physical activity, and orientation in space with the help of a cane involves movement.
- Conducting a rehabilitation camp.
- The second two-week gathering includes deepening previously acquired knowledge and expanding the range of disciplines: educational courses, community activities, fundraising, preparation for education, etc.
- All participants are in constant contact to solve urgent problems and provide practical advice and consultations on various issues.
A veteran learns to cut an onion.
The program lasts two weeks and is designed for five to seven veterans and their accompanying persons to participate in the event. During this period, soldiers who have lost their sight are taught basic skills on a peer-to-peer basis: orientation and movement in space, use of a cane, self-care, and basic household work — everything that is normal for a sighted person's daily life.
In addition, the veterans learn to use smartphones and mobile applications designed specifically for blind people, and with the help of special software, they learn to work with a computer.
Participants of the rehabilitation camp during classes on sports simulators.
Camp participants also receive physiotherapy treatment, including stretching, muscle relaxation, compensatory strength training, corrective breathing exercises, Nordic walking, yoga, and even dancing. They receive consultations from psychologists and lawyers, as well as professional and educational guidance.
In order to understand the world of blind people, relatives of veterans wear masks to classes.
Together with the veterans, their relatives acquire new knowledge and skills. They learn the practices of accompanying people with vision loss, how to help comfortably arrange their lives, and how to interact with the family.
"In our activities, we orient family members of veterans to the fact that they should learn how to interact in a high-quality manner with a person who has lost their sight," Dubov shares. On the one hand, assistance should not turn into excessive care – on the other hand, should not completely ignore the person's wishes and aspirations. To a greater extent, the project works with wives, daughters, and mothers of military personnel because they are the ones who most often interact with them.
Practical training for veterans and their family members.
The project also provides participants with various educational and cultural activities and a trip to the city so that the fighters can practice their skills in navigating the terrain with a cane in an urban environment.
Why a cane and not a guide dog?
A guide dog is not a panacea for a blind person and cannot completely replace a cane. Dubov adds that modern technologies can help blind people to navigate public transport, find lost items, and even read text. It is also worth considering that a dog may cause allergies in the owner or family members. A dog may be right in some cases, but not all. However, the Modern View team believes that every person should have an individual choice in their means of rehabilitation.
Several participants of our gatherings underwent rehabilitation in the United States, where they were paired with guide dogs. "In addition to the fact that dogs help in orientation, we see that they also serve as a factor of psychological relief, stimulate responsibility, and allow the owners to go outside their four walls," Dubov shares.
Ukraine has no state or regional guide dog training program. Volunteers work out this issue exclusively, and the guide dogs available in the country are mainly brought from abroad.
Training a guide dog can cost $15-25,000, making it costly for volunteer or charity initiatives to sustain their efforts in the long term. Ukrainian legislation neither regulates nor recognizes guide dogs as a means of rehabilitation, and there are no documents to confirm the status of a guide dog.
Mobile brigades
"After the end of the camps, we have constant communication with the project participants: the participants and their relatives contact us about different issues — from simply talking, to solving complex legal issues or consulting on which higher educational institution is better to go to study," Dubov says.
Working out the daily route at the veteran's home.
In addition, project participants are visited by interdisciplinary mobile teams to get acquainted with the dynamics of recovery, correction of the rehabilitation program, navigating their neighborhood, and to get psychological support and interaction at the household level.
The interdisciplinary team consists of several specialists, precisely those whose help the veteran needs now. Before departure, a list of key issues to be worked on is formed, a visit schedule is planned, and the team works with the veteran for two to three days.
A veteran who has lost his vision visits a store with a mobile brigade instructor.
"All this happens in the apartment or house where the veteran lives with their family," explains Dubov. Housing may also need some adaptation to the needs of a person with vision loss, as well as some implementing new rules for living together with them. For example, neighbors are advised to not leave interior doors, closet doors, or drawer doors half open, as this, in many cases, leads to injuries. If necessary, an orientation specialist works out routes to the nearest store, pharmacy, and transport stop.
At the same time, the psychologist works out the interaction within the family, and the specialist in social and domestic rehabilitation provides specific advice on arranging the household and daily activities — cooking, cleaning, washing, and ironing.
Did they really succeed?
"Due to our condition, we cannot defend Ukraine with weapons in our hands, so our front has become carrying out rehabilitation activities for our veterans. We consider each of the participants of our project to be a hero, and they become a hero a second time when we see their achievements in new living conditions," says Dubov.
Learning Braille.
Since about 70% of classes are held individually, the organizers of rehabilitation camps do not seek to show any fantastic numbers. Nevertheless, since 2019, about 30 veterans have taken part in rehabilitation and recovery camps, and six of the camps took place, three of which occurred in 2023.
The meeting participants were completely different veterans: soldiers to senior officers, motorized riflemen, and national guards. They come for rehabilitation from all over Ukraine, ranging from youth to people in their 60s. They often have complex impairments in their hearing, vision and limbs.
Dubov, prefers not to focus on individuals since the soldiers themselves are not always ready to share their war stories. But about a third of them started personal relationships, and some got married very recently. Among the program's participants are success stories — such as those who started a non-governmental organization to protect veterans' rights, ran for local elections, continued teaching at military educational institutions, and started their own YouTube channel.
Even more useful solutions!
Because the geography of residence of the project participants is expanding, Modern View intends to attract additional specialists who, in addition to mobile interdisciplinary teams, could help veterans directly in their communities. For this purpose, the association has developed a questionnaire, with the help of which information is collected from those who wish to join the project. They plan to hold training courses for candidates.
At a lecture for veterans and their relatives.
They also created a manual on the organization and conduct of rehabilitation and readaptation camps for military and civilians with vision loss after wounds and injuries, which was presented in August and included work and methodical recommendations for the entire period of rehabilitation and recovery camps. It is currently being registered as a scientific and systematic publication and will be available to the general public.
"Considering the rate at which the number of soldiers losing their sight is increasing, we still have a lot of work ahead of us," continues Dubov. "Of course, we would like to not depend on the goodwill of foreign citizens who fill the Oleksandr Tereshchenko International Charitable Fund but to receive from our state the opportunity and resources for rehabilitating veterans. We discuss it at all meetings, on all public platforms, and on any occasion. However, our appeals have not received the desired response so far."
He adds that, unfortunately, very little attention is still paid to solving accessibility problems for people with visual impairments in Ukraine.
The process of ensuring accessibility in all spheres of life (architecture, transport, infrastructure, information) moves quite slowly; many people try to speculate on this topic or simply launder money. "Some of our colleagues have entire archives of photos and videos of senseless and mindless spending on accessibility. These solutions not only do not solve the mentioned problems but also often serve as a source of danger for people with profound visual impairments," says Dubov.
The tactile strip placed on top of the sewer hatch is dangerous for a blind person.
However, the attitude towards people with visual impairments in society is gradually changing in a positive direction.
"Perhaps it is not happening as fast as we would like, but the trend is clearly being followed. Establishments are appearing where a blind visitor is no longer looked at with fear, not knowing how to communicate with him, passers-by more and more tolerantly offer help on the street," Dubov shares his observations. "In our opinion, the increase in the number of people who lost their health as a result of the war, although this in itself is a negative point, should accelerate positive changes in the perception of people with disabilities in our country."
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