Winter Travel

On one of her 70 trips since her injury in 1989, Kelly Giannattasio
poses in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Misc.

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE: Resolutions
DIRECTOR’S NOTES: Strengthening the Organization

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: What’s In Store
LEGISLATIVE NEWS: January 2007
Congress Passes Bill to Expand Respite Care Services
New Congress Leaders Say Stem Cell Research Will Be […]

As we begin a new year, I want to ask you to consider taking actions that benefit others and that can make a big difference in your life as well.
The first thing I would like to suggest is that you contact someone from your past and say hello. Reach out and tell them about […]

By now you have received, and hopefully have had the opportunity to review, proposed bylaw changes mailed to you last month. With the change in our organization’s name three years ago and our expanded mission, it was essential to overhaul our governing and procedural rules.
The proposed revisions were the result of lengthy review and […]

Alfred Hitchcock famously defined suspense by invoking a scene in a movie in which two people are innocuously chatting and, without warning, a bomb under the table goes off. Now compare that with a scene in which the audience knows there’s a bomb under a table at which two people are innocuously chatting. “In the […]

Congress Passes Bill to Expand Respite Care Services
Thanks to the hard work of advocates across the country, Congress recently approved legislation that would provide help to the nearly 50 million caregivers nationwide. The Lifespan Respite Care Act of 2005 (H.R. 3248/S.1283) was passed by the House on December 6 and by the Senate […]

Survivors of Childhood Polio Do Well Decades Later As They Age
Mayo Clinic researchers have found that years after experiencing childhood polio, most survivors do not experience declines greater than expected in their elderly counterparts, but rather experience only modest increased weakness which may be commensurate with normal aging.
“Other researchers have suggested that polio […]

United Spinal Becomes a Member of NCIL
United Spinal Association has recently joined the ranks of thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations across the country who have become members of the National Council on Independent Living, commonly known as NCIL. Founded in 1982, with its national headquarters in Washington, DC, NCIL is the oldest […]

A travel agent with paraplegia, Kelly Giannattasio shares some traveling tips she’s picked up from personal experience.
By Tiffiny Carlson

Kelly Giannattasio, 33, of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, didn’t plan to become a travel agent while in college. “I had just graduated with my degree in Exercise Physiology four months before the injury.” Giannattasio, a […]

Looking to get back into the sport of downhill skiing, or to try it for the first time? Here are a few things you will want to know before you plan a trip.
By Beth Livingston

The author poses with Dave Donaldson, recreation therapist
for C-5 (combat casualty care center) at Balboa
Naval Medical Center, San […]

United Spinal Association is on the fast track to raise awareness about disabilities by focusing on America’s love affair with the automobile.

By Tom Scott
Ever since the first petrol-fueled automobiles were invented by German Engineers Karl Friedrich Benz and Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler at the end of the 19th Century, motorsports has woven itself into […]

United Spinal Board member Denise Mc Quade’s struggle with polio as a child steeled her for the larger struggle of advocating for the civil rights of people with disabilities
By Rob Ingraham

Board member Denise Mc Quade educated
United Spinal staff about her condition at a recent
“Lunch and Learn” seminar on post-polio.

For most of us, the […]

The President of American Paraplegia Society (APS) talks with Action about the society, her practice, and what they mean for people with spinal cord dysfunction.

Indira Lanig, MD, is the first African-American woman to become president of APS. She is in the second year of her three-year term. Taking time out from her busy schedule […]

An exciting program for people with quadriplegia provides LASIK surgery to qualifying candidates at no charge.
By Lori A. Wood

Dr. Robert Maloney consults with Courtney Henrichs.
(Photo by Nicole Miller Maloney)

Wearing glasses or contact lenses can be bothersome to anyone, but especially to quadriplegics, who may not have the manual dexterity to keep […]

By Rosemarie Rossetti, PhD

A stacked washer-dryer, like the one in Mark Mix’s
home, works against universal design principles.

The Mix Residence
Recently, I was invited to the home of Mark and Jasue Mix in Warsaw, Ohio, to take a look at the universal design features they included when building their 4,400-squarefoot, ranch-style home. The […]

By Tamar Asedo Sherman
To tell or not to tell: that is the question facing many workers with hidden disabilities. There is no reason to tell your current or perspective employer about your disability unless you are asking for an accommodation. You cannot expect an accommodation unless you disclose that you have a […]

By Ed Lash

The National MS Society recently reported that a new study found a modest link between stress and acute attacks of multiple sclerosis (MS). To date, we don’t know the exact relationship between stress and the onset or progression of MS, but what is stress anyway?
Hans Selye, often called the father of […]

By Kathleen M. Muldoon

Happy New Year! Ah, yes, another new year—a time to start all over again, a time to rebuild ourselves into new and improved models. At least that’s my goal each new year—is it yours, too? These desires for improvement are often called “New Year resolutions” and are formed with the best of […]

By Tom Scott
United Spinal and NYC Parks Unveil New Giants Wheelchair Football Field

United Spinal Executive Director Paul J. Tobin and Director of Sports and Recreation Bill Hannigan joined New York City Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe and former New York Giants fullback Charles Way to dedicate the first wheelchair football field in New […]