Our institution was founded in 1998 in order to contribute the solutions of medical, vocational, financial
and social problems of the people who has spinal cord paralysis and prevent occurrence of new spinal
cord paralysis.
Since 1998, Turkey Spinal Cord Paralytics Association has been working on the solutions of medical,
vocational, financial and social problems of people with spinal cord paralysis particularly. However,
TOFD serves not only Spinal Cord Paralysis but also all people with orthopedic disabilities in national
and international areas. Due to The Spinal Cord Paralytics Association successful and widespread works,
by the council of ministers’ decision dated 03.05.2004 and numbered 2004/7252 has been contributed
as a” Non-profit Institution”.
Our institution has initiated and applied many projects for precise and effective participation of disabled
people in the social life. One of the primary objectives of our institution is preventing occurrence of
permanent disabilities and to give information about this topic to the society
It is presumed that there are more than 150.000 people with spinal cord paralysis in Turkey. 90% of
them have to live with wheelchairs and dependent to another person.
Mainly traffic accidents, falling down height, diving headfirst into shallow water, firearm injuries,
occupational accidents, disease ( spinal tumors, spinal infections, soft tissue disease) rutured interverbal
disk cause to paralysis.
Both lack of rehabilitation and environmental conditions ( architectural barriers, transportation
problems) confine to the people with wheelchairs, prevent them active contribution to social and
economic life.
Our Institution deals with these problems’ solutions as a whole, while creating solutions in the public
space. As an individual basis, TOFD provides transportation service to the people with spinal cord
paralysis from their home in order to benefit from the services in our centre.
Our Institution has more than 2100 members and more than 1350 members with spinal paralysis in
various degree.
