Disability Futures

There are lots of experts to help people with developmental disabilities succeed. But the best expert, and the most consistent one,  is often found within. After all, no one knows you better than yourself.

Whether you’ve got the words to express yourself or are reliant on actions alone or others to interpret, Ari Ne’eman, president of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, shares the tools to turn anyone into a self-advocate.

In response to my affirmation of pride yesterday, I received an email. It was a fairly painful read and I've been emailing back and forth throughout the day. In brief, the writer is a person with a disability and questioned the idea of disability pride when life can be so hard and people can be so cruel. I was asked if I didn't, every now and then, simply wish my disability away. I'm going to attempt to answer that question here.

A question raised anew for everyone who has a disability while living in this narrow society.

We are debunking a popular myth that wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle can be detrimental during a motorcycle crash," says study leader Adil H. Haider, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Using this new evidence, legislators should revisit the need for mandatory helmet laws. There is no doubt that helmets save lives and reduce head injury. And now we know they are also associated with a decreased risk of cervical spine injury.

I am a house of cards. I may look steady and sturdy and ready for business. But I am a delicately balanced, perilously perched creature. It’s easy to upset my fragile equilibrium. Approach me the wrong way and somebody might get hurt.

Thanks and a hat tip to Melanie

Thanks and a hat tip to Theresa

A significant amount of attention, money and resources are devoted to soldiers who return home after war and experience a host of issues that fall under the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Yet according to a leading expert on childhood trauma, the number of affected veterans is dwarfed by the legions of American children who are being abused and neglected. Those children, Bessel van der Kolk told Missoulians last week, experience their own psychological, emotional and physical trauma on a daily basis. And they are much the worse for it.

So prevalent is the problem, approximately one in four American children will experience a significant traumatic event by the age of 16.

As one of the psychiatrists who helped define and legitimize PTSD as a medical condition, van der Kolk said the time has come to dramatically change how we look at and treat the youngest members of our society.

Thanks and a hat tip to Marsha.

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and title XIX of the Social Security Act to reform the provision of long-term care insurance.

Just introduced. Full text of Act not available. Appears to require LTC insurance corporations to be transparent.

A not-for-profit Medicaid managed care plan in Ohio agreed this week to pay that state and the federal government $26 million to resolve whistleblower allegations by former employees that for six years the plan falsely billed for special needs assessments and case management services that weren’t provided, the Department of Justice announced.

CareSource, and its related CareSource Management Group Co. and CareSource USA Holding Co., acknowledged the settlement in a statement but denied any wrongdoing. The company is headquartered in Dayton, and provides managed care benefits to about 880,000 Medicaid and Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan.

Thanks and a hat tip to Patti

The 26 million was just cause they were feeling generous.

Australian clinical researchers have noted an extraordinary and unexpected benefit of osteoporosis treatment - that people taking bisphosphonates are not only surviving well, better than people without osteoporosis, they appear to be gaining an extra five years of life.

Gee-that's a lot, where a few months is considered significant in most studies.