> Services >  Post Polio

AgrAbility - Employment Services
Rocky Mountain Village - Warm Water Pool

The role still played by polio support groups in assisting polio survivors today.

Polio Support Groups:
Still playing useful roles

The first polio support group in the United States was probably started in 1921 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who shared his Warm Springs, GA hydrotherapy with children recuperating from the disease. Then for a short time after the polio epidemics of the 1950's the "alumni" of the various polio respiratory and rehabilitation centers created support groups.

Eventually, these groups all disbanded - except two. Today, the Los Angeles group exists as an advocate for local ventilator users. The respiratory center group in Cleveland was continued by Gini Laurie, a volunteer at the Toomey Pavilion (the contagious disease ward of Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital) since 1949, whose two sisters and brother had died from polio.

In 1958, Laurie started a publication called Rehabilitation Gazette, designed to keep polio survivors from Toomey in touch. When Laurie and her husband, Joe, moved to St. Louis in 1971, the Rehabilitation Gazette moved along with them. Today, the Gazette is published twice a year, reaching an estimated 50,000 readers in 87 countries in five languages. The Gazette has always been written by people with a disability, resulting from polio, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, or other conditions.

Laurie set to work with an enthusiasm that rivaled her efforts as a volunteer. She helped establish Gazette International Networking Institute (GINI), a nonprofit organization serving as an information and resource base for the disabled community, and proceeded to organize the first international polio and independent living conference in 1981, held in Chicago. The fourth conference, held in St. Louis in 1987, gathered 747 attendees. A fifth conference is scheduled for May 31-June 4, 1989, in St. Louis.

Largely as a result of GINI and the efforts of Laurie herself, more than 200 polio support groups and over 50 post-polio clinics have been established to date. Membership to GINI is $25 and includes a subscription to Rehabilitation Gazette. Those interested may contact Gazette International Networking Institute, 4502 Maryland Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63108: 314-361-0475.

Adapted with permission from Headly J: History of polio support groups. Polio Network News, 1987.3(4) 1.3. St. Louis International Polio Network: and Laurie G, Twenty years in the Gazette House. Rehabilitation Gazette. 1978.21.2-9. St Louis. Gazette International Networking Institue.