Categories

Link to wheelchair safety gear on sale at United Spinal online store.

Intimacy and MS—A Four-Point Strategy to Maintain a Satisfying Sex Life

Does Multiple Sclerosis have you lugging around 10 tons of frustration in the intimacy department? Then it might be time to try a new [...]

Meet Market

Disability related dating services are becoming a popular place to find new friends, lovers, business connections, and relationships. Author Linda A. Cronin offers a sampling of these popular online [...]

Functional Electrical Stimulation: The Future of Rehabilitation?

Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) offers numerous benefits to individuals living with disabilities. But education is paramount to ensure the safety and efficacy of this treatment [...]

Astrocytes and Neuronal Regeneration

Do these star-shaped cells promote spinal repair or do they just cause pain?

By Earline Gilley

When you think of the spinal cord, you may automatically think of neurons. It’s only logical to think that the repair and replacement of damaged neurons would be key to curing spinal cord injury (SCI)-related paralysis. Until very recently, however, it had long been thought that neurons, unlike skin and blood cells, for example, could not regenerate. But conventional wisdom has been proven wrong.

In the past two decades, researchers have found that there are indeed adult neural stem cells that can be used to grow new neurons. They [...]

ADAPT Housing Protest Riles Up DC

Disability rights activists make some news getting arrested for the cause. But is anyone in Washington listening to the call for more affordable adaptive housing?

By Amy Meisner-Threet, MSW

“I’d rather go to jail than die in a nursing home.” That was just one of many chants heard resounding in the nation’s capital as more than 200 protesters, including this reporter, from ADAPT (Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) came together for political action September 12 to 16.

We descended upon Washington, DC, from all over the United States with a clear message: We need accessible, affordable, integrated housing! That’s “we,” as in [...]

Heightened Hopes on Disabilities Issues But No Panacea

Many people in Washington have heightened hopes for disability and health-care policy issues but there are still many factors to overcome before we can get there. [...]

Changes in Air Travel

Travel consultant Andrea Kennedy takes off on the “Changes In Air Travel” and what travelers can expect during the upcoming winter and holiday travel [...]

A New Way to Design Accessible Housing

Building a new accessible home? Michael Anderson has a story to tell. “My builder had his lawyer there. I knew then, there was a fight [...]

MS PERSPECTIVES: The Value of Sleep

By Ed Lash

At age 42, in 1969, I was working the evening shift and said to a coworker, “Would you believe it? I got myself a part-time job three months ago and have been living on five or six hours sleep and feel great!”

He made no comment, but about a week later, I said to him, “I can’t understand it. If I hold an ice cube in my left hand, it feels ice cold. If I hold it in my right hand, it feels lukewarm.”

A few days later I was in the hospital with complete immobility on the left side of my [...]

POLIO TIPS AND TECHNIQUES: Bad Research Part II–Publishing by Press Release

Dr. Richard L. Bruno continues his rant on “Bad Research” and unpublished medical research in “Bad Research Part [...]

ACCESSIBLE HOME: Model Home Showcases Independent Living

By Rosemarie Rossetti, PhD

Louis Tenanbaum, Certified Aging in Place Specialist, recently wrote an article, “Benefits of Universal Design Model Homes.” He wrote, “If a picture speaks a thousand words, a walk through is worth a million pictures. Universal Design model home projects offer that walkthrough experience. They provide shared context so the Universal Design discussion can be rooted in a ‘bricks and mortar’ experience.”

If you’re near Wausau, Wisconsin, you have a chance to see such a model home for yourself on the campus of Northcentral Technical College. Its purpose is to demonstrate accessible house modifications and related furniture, fixtures, appliances, equipment and [...]

WORKING WORLD: Readers face discrimination in employment

By Tamar Asedo Sherman

Despite guarantees promised us by the Americans With Disabilities Act way back in 1990, many Action readers feel they are being discriminated against because of their disabilities. A couple of letters reprinted here are good representatives:

One came from a woman I’ll call Ann (not her real name), who wrote:

“Discrimination?

“I am an avid Action reader, I had some questions regarding ADA in the workplace. Being on probationary status (new hire) at work, if I am fired while being sick and out of the office due to my disability, do I have any rights?”

To answer her question, I consulted with a [...]

ASK THE COACH: The Kindness of Strangers

“Coach” Scott Chesney tosses his two cents in on how to deal with offers of help both inside and outside of the [...]

KIDS IN ACTION: Space Rabbits and Underwear

Space Rabbits and Underwear has author Kathleen M. Muldoon pondering the challenges of writing thank-you-notes for those “Unique” [...]

60 Minutes: Harnessing The Power Of The Brain

If you missed this segment on 60 Minutes last night on computer brain interface technology, the story and video are available here.

From the 60 Minutes website:

(CBS) Once in a while, we run across a science story that is hard to believe until you see it. That’s how we felt about this story when we first saw human beings operating computers, writing e-mails, and driving wheelchairs with nothing but their thoughts.

Quietly in a number of laboratories, an astounding technology is developing that directly connects the human brain to a computer. It’s like a sudden leap in human evolution – a leap that could [...]