Learn English #5 Intermediate | •Advanced

Read the newspaper story below, and then answer the questions that follow it.

Wheelchair-bound woman diagnosed her illness online

A formerly wheelchair-bound Italian woman has gone trekking in Nepal after diagnosing her illness on the Internet.

Stefania Vanoni's illness had puzzled her doctors in Baceno in northern Italy for more than two decades. Endless tests failed to find out why she was unable to walk, reported Italian media.

But after identifying the symptoms that had left her crippled as the condition known as ataxia, she is now walking again and has to take one small tablet a day. After reading how an inability to coordinate muscular movements was symptomatic of certain nervous disorders like a condition, she asked doctors to perform a DNA test which confirmed that she had ataxia.

After six months of physiotherapy and treatments, she was able to walk again for the first time in 23 years and lead "a normal life". She said: "I had visited lots of neurological experts and no-one could help me. I wasn't particularly looking to cure myself on the Internet, but was reading up on the subject and suddenly realised the symptoms they were talking about referred to me. "I instantly demanded a DNA test because no-one had ever mentioned this possibility to me."

Vanoni now wants to make up for lost time, and following her trekking holiday in Nepal she is planning another trekking trip to Peru.


• Text from Ananova.com

Reading comprehension

True or false?
    true false
1. Doctor's discovered the cause of Stefania's illness on the Internet.
2. Stefania was ill for over 20 years.
3. Stefania didn't want to visit doctors to do any tests.
4. To diagnose Stefania's illness doctors had to repeat a test they had done.
5. Stefania was unable to walk for six months.
6. Stefania can walk long distances now.
       

Exercises

1. Health idioms

Sort the idioms below. Do they describe good health or bad health?

    Good
health		 Bad
health
1. I'm as fit as a fiddle.
2. I'm feeling a bit out of sorts.
3. I'm feeling a bit under the weather.
4. I'm as right as rain.
5. I'm a bit stressed out.
6. I'm fighting fit.
7. My back is killing me.
8. I can't complain.
       

 

2. More exercises
You will find more exercises relating to this text in the Intermediate section:

 

What do you think?

Would you ever consider self-diagnosis using the Internet? Do you think you can trust most information that you find on the Internet? What are the good and bad things about having access to this kind of information?

Have you ever read up on an illness on the Internet? Did you find the information useful? Do you know of any useful health sites on the Internet?

 

More exercises

 


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