Disability Futures

Look Back, Plan Forward was created to support individuals with disabilities and people who are aging; along with their family caregivers and service providers, by offering a resource to capture their personal stories. The tool is designed to help you capture your life stories in a way that helps others to better understand your history, values, preferences and support needs. On this site you can:

• Enter your personal history.
• Print your personal history to share with family, friends, health care providers, and home care providers.
• Save your personal history so you can update it over time.

Sharing your history with trusted family, friends, and providers can help others to understand who you are and support you in the way you prefer.

A urine soaked scream room. A child stuffed in a duffel bag. Vinegar soaked cotton balls put in a child's mouth. Slapped on the head with plastic bottles. Child dragged through a playground across asphalt with pants down. Shoved to the floor and dead from asphyxiation. Handcuffed and duct-taped. Degraded. Dehumanized. Traumatized. Mob stories? No, it is just a scratch of the surface of what has happened to children in special education in the past year. Not in a third world country, but here in America.

Last year began with the University of Colorado Denver and its affiliated teaching hospitals launching an overhaul of conflict-of-interest policies [1] after ProPublica found that more than a dozen of its faculty members had given paid promotional talks.

"We're going to just have to say we're not going to be involved with these speakers bureaus because they're primarily marketing," Dr. Richard Krugman, vice chancellor for health affairs, said in an interview in January 2011.

A few months later, Stanford University took disciplinary action against five faculty members [2] identified by ProPublica who had taken money to deliver drug company speeches, a violation of university policy.

And by last fall, there were indications that pharmaceutical companies were also reducing the money [3] they spent on doctor speakers.

ProPublica first published its Dollars for Docs database [4] in October 2010 listing payments to doctors from seven drug companies. When we updated it this September [3] -- with data from five additional companies -- spending by some of the firms was down.

Advocates working with the disability and aged communities in Michigan are urging the state's U.S. Senators and House members to help stop a Medicare change that would restrict Michigan beneficiaries from receiving power wheelchairs prescribed by their physicians.

Seven states, including Michigan, were chosen by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for a prepayment review demonstration project.

The program will cause a delay of up to 16 months or more before Michigan's home medical equipment providers can be fully reimbursed for purchasing power wheelchairs and providing the equipment to Medicare beneficiaries.

But consumer advocates and providers are asking Congress to stop the program because it will disrupt service to Medicare beneficiaries. Many providers say the long delay for reimbursements will force their companies out of business, creating significant delays in filling power wheelchair prescriptions for Medicare patients who are in dire need of mobility assistance.

"This is a direct attack on some of the most vulnerable people in our society," said Mike Zelley, President of The Disability Network in Flint, MI. "Senior citizens and people living with disabilities need power wheelchairs to live independently in their homes and to delay confinement in expensive care facilities and nursing homes. Congress cannot allow CMS to restrict access to medical equipment that has been prescribed by physicians so that these Medicare beneficiaries can improve their mobility and enjoy a better life."

The friend finding feature works because the cane contains a specially designed phone that slots into the handle and connects to a Bluetooth earpiece with an audio interface. A trackball on the handle controls the menu and points which way to go.

When a friend checks in on Foursquare, (or any other location sharing service), the cane alerts the blind user with an audio message, saying how far away the person is, down to how many steps it will take to reach them. The cane offers the option to ignore, call the friend, or, most impressively go find them, an option blind people don’t usually get to experience.

“The tactile navigator is a directional pointer that translates GPS map directions into an 'arrow’ that points towards the way to go,” Chew says.

A beginning

Amazing stuff

We’ve all experienced it: The frustration of entering a room and forgetting what we were going to do. Or get. Or find.

New research from University of Notre Dame Psychology Professor Gabriel Radvansky suggests that passing through doorways is the cause of these memory lapses.

“Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away,” Radvansky explains.

“Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized.”

Makes a bizarre kind of sense. I wonder what happened when we were all hunter gathers and didn't have doors.

A photo and audio documentary celebrating the experiences and accomplishments of disabled women at the First International Symposium on Issues of Women with Disabilities, the UN Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum held in Beijing, China in fall 1995.

Twitter has recently announced their Twitter for Nonprofits Program.  It’s short, so I’ll just repost the information from the Hope140 blog post here:

1. Promoted Campaigns for Good

Pro-bono: Select numbers of registered non-profit organizations can receive pro-bono tweets and accounts. This program is booked solid with a 6-month waiting list right now, so organizations must apply early. Fill out this query form for an application.

Paid: Registered Non-Profit organizations who do not receive acceptance into our pro-bono program can apply to receive 20% bonus on all ad buys. Contact our sales team here.

2. Promoted Crisis Campaigns

Pro-bono: Registered non-profit organizations who provide valuable resources in times of crisis (natural disaster, civil unrest) can apply to be considered for pro-bono promoted tweets and promoted accounts. Organizations are asked to apply early, and we slot them in as the need arises. Fill out this query form for an application.

Paid: Registered Non-Profit Organizations who do not receive acceptance into our pro-bono program can apply to receive 20% bonus on all ad buys.

There are other programs below the snippet.

Disability and Technology

I will use myself as a working example to further comment on. I am writing this article on my laptop, using speech to text technology (Dragon Dictate) to type my thoughts for me while I talk to my computer. I’m sitting upright in my adjustable hospital-style bed, supported by an almost entirely metal spine that was implanted to keep my spine from collapsing. My laptop is on a rolling metal table to keep it from putting pressure on my legs. I am literally surrounded by technology to lift me out of bed, help me do necessary personal activities, and to help me take part in my household as a wife and individual. When I leave this house, you see me in my power wheelchair, or perhaps using my adapted minivan or the ramp on the light rail. I am alive because medical technology was developed to treat blood clots. I exist because I have an almost symbiotic relationship with technology.

Interesting take on the Cyborg Manifesto, and our community, as well as many others.