Do you thinks statistics are realistic?

I’ve hear that apparently only 1 in 4 people end up needing a wheelchair, do you think that this is correct or realistic? The stories I hear on the Internet & on forums in seems more people I read of are in a wheelchair rather than not. What do you believe?

I think more people use wheelchairs not because they physically cannot walk but because the sheer exhaustion of the effort to do so wipes them out. I know I do !! And perhaps this has become more widely accepted. My neuro was ver disapproving and told me not to use it but my nurse disagreed and explained why I should use it. I agree with my nurse !! We have to be good to ourselves and energy conservation is vastly more important than struggling on. Xx

I think the statistics are probably correct.

Don’t forget that people who are worse affected may be more likely to turn to forums, so from that point of view, it’s not a random sample. It’s human nature that people don’t often post to say they’re fine. They’re more likely to post when there’s a problem.

Tina

Personly statistics like that are prob correct. The one i dont believe is their is only 100000 ms’ers in the uk.

I agree with Tina, I think people with very poor mobility are less likely to work (although of course many do still work)… but those of us that have had to give up work are more likely to use forums.

Many fully mobile MSers out there who never use forums or only use occasionally.

Pat x

The trouble with any “statistics” like that is that you never know how big the sample population was. Like
1 out of 4 is 25%
10,000 out of 40,000 is also 25%

I go with Darren that I just do not believe that there are 100,000 MSers in the UK. It would be very easy for the NHS to collect that data, by asking every Neurologist (or every hospital) how many people with MS are on their books. My gut feeling is that no government has wanted to do this in case the number is too large - “OMG, HOW MANY?”

The MS Society could also do this - and it would only take a couple of hours to come up with a “tick-the-box” survey form that could be completed very easily. The trouble with this would be that there is less compulsion to complete the return than if the NHS wanted it done.

I would not be surprised if the data is not already “on the system” anyway - but no-one has bothered to do an SQL search to find out. When I think that about 4-5 years back, you could not step into a surgery without being asked to complete a survey on depression - but I have never seen any results made public, I do wonder about official data collection. Mind you, it was one of the worst survey forms I have ever seen

Going back to the original question, my recollections of two Society branches are that there were well less than 25% of the people attending in wheelchairs.

Geoff