When Katherine Koch began training to become a paramedic, she quickly realized the course was missing a key component.
“The paramedic textbooks are huge: two volumes, three inches thick, with a ton of information,” she says. “But none of the textbooks I used had anything about anybody with special needs.”
Driven by both a personal and professional interest in disabilities, Koch was especially well-suited to spot – and remedy – this gap.
When her son was diagnosed with autism as a young boy, Koch became a special education teacher to better support his needs. By the time she began her emergency medical services (EMS) training, Koch was an associate professor of educational studies and special education at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She knew that increasing awareness and understanding of disabilities was not only critical for teachers, but medical professionals, too.
Since the EMS textbooks did not cover disabilities, Koch decided to write one that did.
“EMS Response to Patients with Special Needs: Assessment, Treatment, and Transport” is among the spotlighted resources in the National Paralysis Resource Center’s new collection for EMS professionals. The textbook provides an in-depth look at an array of disabilities, including an extensive section on health concerns related to cerebral palsy, spina bifida and spinal cord injury.
The goal, Koch says, is to help EMS professionals strengthen prehospital care.
“I wanted to fill that gap,” she says, adding, “The more information we have, the more training we have, the more context we have – the better we will do.”
As she researched the book, Koch reached out to experts, community members and disability-related message boards to learn more about secondary conditions and specific challenges.
“I said, ‘What do I need to know? What am I missing?’” she says.
The textbook highlights pre-existing health issues first responders should be aware of, from the increased risk of choking and aspiration pneumonia faced by people living with cerebral palsy to the latex allergies and urinary tract infections commonly occurring with spina bifida.
When Koch learned about autonomic dysreflexia, a potentially life-threatening case of acute hypertension experienced by many people living with spinal cord injury, she was shocked that it was not part of her EMS training.
“I’m reading about this and going, ‘Whoa, this is huge,’” she says. “And I knew nothing about it. It was not covered in my coursework. This is a major thing, and we don’t know about it.”
The topics in Koch’s textbook aren’t limited to medical issues; she also offers wheelchair etiquette tips, suggestions for interacting with service animals and an explanation of person-first language.
“I have watched colleagues not treat people with disabilities well because of ignorance,” she says. “Simple things, like using the right language, are important.”
Koch, who speaks about the intersection of prehospital emergency medicine and disability issues at national EMS conferences, hopes the textbook continues to find its way to EMS squads across the country.
“I look at disability as part of the human condition,” she says. “All of us have our own needs in different ways. I’m hoping that EMS providers will take the information in this book and use it to inform their practice.”
For more information about “EMS Response to Patients with Special Needs: Assessment, Treatment, and Transport” by Katherine Koch, please visit the Fire Engineering Books website.
The NPRC’s Resources for EMS Professionals, featuring a comprehensive overview of paralysis-related secondary conditions, wheelchair etiquette and carrying techniques, is available here.