Disabled: It’s Only a Word Till You Try It : Health care: Simulating handicaps show a concerned group just how difficult they are and how much courage, patience and determination it takes to overcome them.

EL TORO — The task didn’t seem that difficult, catching a colorful, soft foam ball thrown from a few feet away. But as hard as he tried, the 31-year-old man failed, the ball repeatedly bouncing off his chest and falling to the floor.

But Dr. Steve Ierardi, a family practitioner, had an excuse for his fumbling. He was wearing glasses with the left side of each lens blackened, simulating a loss of vision experienced by some stroke victims.

“First, you are baffled. Then you are mad,” Ierardi said.

Ierardi and more than 20 other South Orange County business people, medical practitioners and government leaders, most of whom have some experience working with the disabled elderly, got a chance to better understand their clients and constituents at a simulation session Thursday hosted by the Lake Forest Nursing Center.

Artificially disabled--their fingers tied together with rubber bands to simulate the restriction of arthritis, cotton stuffed into their ears to impair their hearing and Vaseline rubbed on glasses to create the blurred vision caused by cataracts--they tried to draw circles and triangles on paper.

With an arm incapacitated, they learned how difficult it is to put on a shirt with one hand. Equally frustrating and time-consuming was using a long, pincer-like instrument to pull on a pair of pants when they were told they could not bend their waist or leg because of arthritis.

And they discovered the trust and courage required to climb a set of steps on one leg, relying on a walker and the helping hand of a physical therapist.

“You are only about a foot and a half off the ground, but you feel like you are up a mile,” Ierardi said with amazement.

Rosemarie Hall, the marketing director at the 179-bed, skilled nursing facility in El Toro, told participants that they would learn “what it might be like to have to think about each movement before you do it.”

She noted that what the participants had accomplished almost automatically that morning, from brushing their teeth to combing their hair to making coffee, are major challenges for many disabled persons.

Hall said the idea to hold the event was born several months ago when she drove into a bank parking lot and noticed that a man in his 20s had pulled into a stall reserved for the handicapped. She said she told the man how difficult it is for handicapped people to cope, but “he just shrugged his shoulders.”

Those who participated learned that no matter how bright or educated they were, dealing with a handicap is no easy matter.

“I have a greater respect for the clients I work for,” said Lola Clark Weaver, manager of social services for Leisure World in Laguna Hills, after trying to draw a picture with her fingers pinched by arthritis-simulating rubber bands.

“I know I can take those rubber bands off,” she said. “Imagine having to live like that knowing not much is ever going to change.”

Barbara Gaita, director of occupational therapy at the nursing home, noted how people trying to thread colored beads while wearing glasses that partially restricted their vision tended to turn their heads one way or another to improve their view. This reaction, called “compensating,” is the same thing that the visually handicap learn, she said.

Barbara Linden, a nurse and the Medicare coordinator at the nursing center, related her own recent experiences as an arthritic patient before she had a total hip-replacement operation. One internal resource she depended on was patience, she said. Another was a sense of humor.

“I saw you there trying to put a sock on,” she said to the audience. “That’s a breeze. Try panty hose sometime. It was hysterical.”

When April Moell, a registered occupational therapist, asked participants how they felt during the experiment, their responses ranged from impatience to frustration, embarrassment to disbelief. Those who had tried out wheelchairs remarked on how small they suddenly felt with so many people towering over them.

“But did being in a wheelchair make you feel stupid?” Moell demanded, observing that too often people who are disabled are treated paternalistically or their capabilities are ignored.

“We have a tendency in our society to shy away from people with disabilities,” she said. “That’s a shame, not only for them but for us.

“I hope everyone will go home realizing that deep down, if you were disabled, you would still be the same person.”