SCI/D Conferences in Las Vegas

Director of Social Services Jerome Kleckley (left) enjoys a light moment with Damon Rozier, who gave a presentation on the role of sports in psychosocial rehabilitation following spinal cord injury at the Tri-Association Conferences of SCI/D health care professionals in Las Vegas last month.

Misc.
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE: Research and You
DIRECTOR’S NOTES: An Excellent […]

Ensuring the best available medical care for our members was one of the primary purposes for the formation of our organization 60 years ago, and it continues to be one of our highest priorities. Activities to support this effort include: valuable research accounting for close to $60 million; creation and sponsorship of three organizations of […]

I write this column upon returning from Las Vegas, where nearly 1,000 physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, physical therapists, and occupational therapists treating persons with spinal cord injury or disease (SCI/D) attended an educational conference sponsored and coordinated by United Spinal Association. Although our organization has spent more than $27 million sponsoring this major educational […]

I was very fortunate to be able to attend the Tri-Association Conferences in Las Vegas last month, which you can read about on page 10. Though I’ve been reading about them in our newsmagazine for years, this was my first close-up view of these United Spinalsupported meetings for doctors, nurses, and psychologists and social workers […]

Hughes Syndrome or MS?––Controversy Over UK ‘Misdiagnoses’
An article published in the August 22nd edition of the UK-based Times reports that hundreds of people with Hughes syndrome may have been misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), however, health care professionals caution against drawing false hope from these findings.
The article states that, “Patients in whom MS was diagnosed—the […]

UN Panel Approves Treaty to Protect the World’s Estimated 650 Million People With Disabilities
On August 26, a United Nations General Assembly panel passed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities—a treaty to expand the rights and freedoms of persons with disabilities throughout the world. The full 192-nation General Assembly is expected to […]

Giving Care
I’m grateful that you are now including articles on the family caregiver (Giving Care, by Linda R. Cronin, August 2006). Once the invisible partner, family caregivers are now being seen as the backbone of the Caregiving industry. We here in Arizona are working furiously on changing the face of the industry.
Through standardizing the […]

Jonathan Wolpaw, MD, surveyed the state of brain-computer interfaces
in his keynote address to the American Paraplegia Society.

Spinal cord health care professionals make this year’s conference in Las Vegas one to remember, setting the bar high for next year’s meetings in Orlando.

By Rob Ingraham and Chris Pierson

“I never thought I would wax sentimental about the […]

United Spinal has spent nearly $60 million on research into virtually all aspects of spinal cord medicine.

By Terry Moakley
In 1948, the Board of Directors of our founding group, Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, voted to give the fledgling National Paraplegia Foundation (NPF) a loan of $5,000 toward research for a cure for spinal cord injury. Eventually, […]

Love, Work, & Play—A More In-Depth Exploration
By Trevor A. Dyson-Hudson, MD

United Spinal Association and the Northern New Jersey Spinal Cord Injury System (NNJSCIS) are teaming up once again to present a consumeroriented education conference for persons with spinal cord injury and disease (SCI/D), their families and friends, and interested professionals. This year’s conference is entitled, […]

Some states have been slow to ensure that voters with disabilities have equal access to the process.

By John P. Herrion

A ballot-marking device for people with disabilities is demonstrated at United Spinal headquarters. All voting machines are required to be accessible after January 1, 2007.

In 2002, President Bush signed the Help America Vote Act […]

An internet presence spreads the word on the need for accessible taxis in every community.

By Terry Moakley

The Standard Taxi prototype is designed to be accessible
to all passengers, including those who use wheelchairs.

On July 26, the sixteenth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, United Spinal launched Taxis For All—North America, www.taxisforallNA.org, a Web […]

By Tamar Asedo Sherman

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, a time to increase the public’s awareness of the contributions and skills of American workers with disabilities. This is not something new that came into being with passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, but began in 1945 as one week and […]

By Elizabeth M. Treston

A scene from Krankenhaus Blues at the Visible Theatre in New York City.

New York City restaurants and bars are teeming with actors and writers. They all have dreams of making it to Broadway. They call it their “craft.” I find actors to be traveling on a different plane. They are always […]

By Ziggi Landsman
More and more powered wheelchair and scooter users are pushing their chairs out to the limit and most often they are coming up short. By necessity, power wheelers require increased range (distance) from their wheelchair systems these days. But being able to go long distances if you don’t have the juice to get […]

By Ed Lash

Whether we personally have multiple sclerosis (MS), have a friend or relative with MS, or are a medical professional involved with MS, we have all developed a philosophy about the disease. We’ve developed that philosophy through personal experience, from our reading, from talking to and observing others, finding out what the experts say, […]

By Kathleen M. Muldoon

Yvette Silver yvettesilver.com

Every year when October and Halloween roll around, I get to thinking about masks and costumes in general. I’ve always loved dressing up in these, pretending I’m someone or something else. I wouldn’t want to always wear them, because I like myself just the way I am. So I masquerade […]