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The Murderball star becomes the spokesperson for anyone who’s ever had to wait for an accessible parking spot.
By Jennifer Rodriguez-Khadir
Mark Zupan scowls at a crucial moment of a new public
service announcement for United Spinal Association.
With his short red hair and long red goatee, US Paralympic quad rugby player Mark Zupan has become an icon since his starring role in the 2005 documentary Murderball, followed by indestructible appearances on MTV’s Jackass and the film Jackass Two. Late last year, Zupan, who has been a C-6-7 quad since an accident in college, published a memoir provocatively titled [...]
By William Clarke
The tow rope became tense. It signaled that an object of great mass was being pulled. That object was me-or I was part of the object.
I was at a ski mountain in Pennsylvania by the name of Camelback, a chilly vacation spot. I came with my brother, my two nephews, my 9-year-old son and the promise that I would be joining in the fun. Me being the adventurous type, I had jumped at the chance to go.
On the drive up, everyone was playing it cool. Even the kids wanted to appear as if they had done this [...]
By Rosemarie Rossetti, PhD
Last fall, my husband and I met Mark and Jasue Mix of Warsaw, Ohio, who had recently built a home along universal design principles. An Iraq war veteran who was injured in the war, Mark now uses a wheelchair. We were curious about the universal design features used in the Mix home that we could incorporate in our own new home (and future Universal Design Living Laboratory www.udll.com).
As we entered the kitchen and stopped to chat at the center island, Mark handed me a list of things that he and his wife wished they had done [...]
By Tamar Asedo Sherman
Suppose you’ve been injured or are experiencing exacerbations from a chronic health condition that impacts your ability to work. Before you leave that job in anger and frustration, stop and think. Is there some modification or adjustment to the job, the work environment, or the way things are usually done that would enable you to continue to do your job?
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 T-6 complete paraplegic, was injured in a Jeep rollover accident in Santa Barbara, California, back in 1998.
Knowing her previous professional goal of becoming a physical trainer would be out of the question, Giannattasio decided to answer an ad looking for travel counselors. “I figured it was [...]
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 word “polio” conjures up black and white images from the 1950s: school kids lined up for vaccinations, clumsy metal and leather leg braces, a doctor named Jonas Salk, and a fearsome device known as an “iron lung.”
During the early 1950s, more than 20,000 new [...]
By Josie Kelly
As the holidays approach, most of us fondly remember the games and toys of our childhood. The anticipation of tearing open wrapping paper to find a new toy, and the pleasure of mastering the new skills such toys represent, are universal. Children with disabilities are no different, even if the toys we found under our wrapping paper weren’t always the same as the toys of other kids. While “Big Wheels” were making a commotion roaming the sidewalks in my neighborhood in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was making my own noise on my “Sit ‘n’ Spin” and mesmerizing [...]
By Tamar Asedo Sherman
Thanks to technology, there are many devices that can increase, maintain or improve the functional capabilities of people with spinal cord impairments, enabling us to live independently and even return to work. If you can move anything—a finger, your mouth, your eyelid or your head—you can operate a computer. Technology is progressing so fast that there are few limitations that can’t be overcome.
By Rosemarie Rossetti, Ph.D.
Universal design is a framework for the design of living and working spaces and products benefiting the widest possible range of people in the widest range of situations without special or separate design. My husband Mark Leder and I have been applying its principles as we build our new home, the Universal Design Living Library (www.udll.com) in Columbus, Ohio, which I’ve written about in previous columns.
Ron Mace, an internationally renowned architect, product designer and educator, is credited with conceiving the term “universal design.” He founded the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University (www.design.ncsu.edu/cud) in Raleigh [...]
Social Security: Proposed Cuts Would Hurt People with Disabilities
People with disabilities have long complained about inadequate service from the Social Security Administration (SSA): lengthy delays in applying for disability benefits, poor administration of work incentive programs, and, of course, the ever-present long lines and wait times on the 800 number. Now these problems threaten to get even worse.
The proposed funding for SSA’s administrative costs in this year’s Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriation bills is even lower than the already inadequate figure proposed by the President. The current House bill would reduce SSA’s budget to $200 million below [...]
United Spinal is partnering with PepsiCo to create a model corporate culture for people with disabilities.
By Dominic Marinelli
During the past year, United Spinal Association has worked with the PepsiCo family, which includes Pepsi, Frito-Lay, Quaker Oats, Gatorade and Tropicana, to improve employment opportunities and accessibility for people with disabilities inside the company.
The initiative began during the fall of 2005 when the leadership of PepsiCo invited United Spinal to participate in a day-long meeting focusing on the varying abilities of employees and customers. Throughout the day, staff members from United Spinal discussed issues impacting people with disabilities with PepsiCo management.
“We were specifically [...]
By John M. Williams
Three times within the past year, I have witnessed the new Microsoft Windows Vista’s accessibility features being demonstrated. Each time increased my appreciation of the Windows upgrade, which is due for general release just after the New Year, and I now rate the new accessibility features higher than the original Windows accessibility features.
Windows Vista includes a new Ease of Access center (located in the Control Panel), where anyone can turn on accessibility settings and tools. Users can enter the Center by selecting Winkey (between the control and alt keys on PC keyboards) +U. A questionnaire helps users [...]
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 approve the treaty during its next session, which opens in September. The treaty is expected to take effect in 2008 or 2009.
The treaty will require nations that sign it to adopt laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability. Currently only 45 nations have laws that protect [...]
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 Riviera,” said American Paraplegia Society (APS) President Indira Lanig, MD, at the beginning of the first session of APS’s 52nd conference at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas last month, “but this week, I do find myself waxing sentimental. Coming here [...]
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 (HAVA) into law. HAVA provides federal funding for states to improve election administration and replace outdated voting systems. Its provisions require education for voters concerning voting procedures, rights and technology, and training for poll workers and volunteers to effectively administer the voting process. Other obligations under [...]
Alex Pitts was born quadriplegic, his twin brother Ryan was not. This month they will be entering kindergarten together. Like most twins, they have many similarities, but their levels of ability and needs are very different. How will this affect their experience at school?
By Rob Ingraham
Six years ago, Melissa Pitts gave birth to twin boys. Ryan arrived healthy, but for his brother Alex, something went wrong in delivery. Before he had a chance to take his first breath, Alex sustained a C-6-7 spinal cord injury (SCI) and entered the world quadriplegic.
As a physical therapist experienced in [...]
Camp Courage, in the wilds of Minnesota, is a place for every ability to learn and have fun.
By Tiffiny Carlson
Garrison Keillor had it right when he said Minnesota was a land unto itself. With its 10,000 lakes and abundance of untouched forests, it’s the kind of place where a storyteller can close his eyes and conjure a whole world out of the imagination. And that’s kind of what Courage Center, a physical rehabilitation center in the Twin Cities, did when it imagined and then realized Camp Courage in 1955 as the ultra-accessible environment for people with disabilities.
Since its inception, Camp [...]
You might like taking shortcuts around sidewalk traffic and using your power chair on the road, but-for safety’s sake-adapt your chair!
By Ziggi Landsman
For years the average power wheelchair speed was somewhere around 4.5 mph. Nowadays, many scooters and chairs can pump out close to 7 or 8 mph with a number of them getting to 10 mph and above.
Some other things haven’t changed. Many areas still do not have good curb cuts (or any), or for that matter there may be no sidewalks at all. Then there is human nature. That hasn’t changed either. You have the [...]
UNITED SPINAL ACTION ALERT
On Monday, July 17, Senators Bingaman (D-NM) and Santorum (R-PA) introduced legislation to remove Medicare’s “in the home” restriction on mobility devices. Please ask your Senators to cosponsor this important legislation for people with disabilities!
Currently, Medicare will only cover mobility devices if beneficiaries need them for use inside their homes. If a beneficiary can function at home with a manual wheelchair, but needs a power wheelchair to go to work, the doctor, or the local grocery store, Medicare will only pay for a manual wheelchair. This “in the home” rule severely restricts the independence of people [...]
What’s good news for people with disabilities who want to use taxis in New York City is good news for people with disabilities nationwide.
By Terry Moakley
At the end of May, partly as a result of advocacy by United Spinal and other local groups, the New York City Council passed a law that soon will raise the total of hybrid or clean-air taxis to 273 and wheelchair- accessible cabs to 231. In a joint press release issued by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s office on the day of this vote, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn stated, “We have a responsibility to [...]
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