By DR. KATIE SPALDING: For Complete Post, Click Here… They’re the size of a postage stamp, but they produce images in striking detail. f you’ve ever had an ultrasound, you’ll know it’s not exactly a portable process. You generally have to go to a hospital, or at the very least a doctor’s office, and a … Continue reading Wearable Ultrasound Produces Images So Clear You Can See Your Own Internal Organs
http://dlvr.it/SVptTf
Month: July 2022
Hospices Have Become Big Business for Private Equity Firms, Raising Concerns About End-of-Life Care
By Markian Hawryluk: For Complete Post, Click Here…
Hospice care, once provided primarily by nonprofit agencies, has seen a remarkable shift over the past decade, with more than two-thirds of hospices nationwide now operating as for-profit entities. The ability to turn a quick profit in caring for people in their last days of life is attracting a new breed of hospice owners: private equity firms.
That rapid growth has many hospice veterans worried that the original hospice vision may be fading, as those capital investment companies’ demand for return on investment and the debt load they force hospices to bear are hurting patients and their families.
“Many of these transactions are driven by the motive of a quick profit,” said Dr. Joan Teno, an adjunct professor at Brown University School of Public Health, whose work has focused on end-of-life care. “I’m very concerned that you’re harming not only the dying patient, but the family whose memory will be of a loved one suffering because they didn’t get adequate care.”
Wearable Ultrasound Produces Images So Clear You Can See Your Own Internal Organs
By DR. KATIE SPALDING: For Complete Post, Click Here… They’re the size of a postage stamp, but they produce images in striking detail. f you’ve ever had an ultrasound, you’ll know it’s not exactly a portable process. You generally have to go to a hospital, or at the very least a doctor’s office, and a […]
http://dlvr.it/SVpssh
How the Brain Allows the Deaf to Experience Music
BY ELENA RENKEN: For Complete Post, Click Here…
velyn Glennie began percussion lessons around age 12, after losing much of her hearing to nerve deterioration. Her teacher struck a timpani drum and let the sound resonate, wondering aloud how they could make use of the drum’s vibrations. “He asked me to put my hands on the wall of the music room,” Glennie said recently, in a conversation from her home in England. She could feel the first impact of a drumbeat, but she could also feel the vibrations reverberating afterward. “It really slowed the body down, because I was paying attention to the whole journey of that sound,” she explained. “The whole body was participating in paying attention to the sound. And it really then just changed everything for me. It changed my sensitivity toward touch.” Glennie learned to discern the different pitches of musical notes this way, and eventually built a career as a celebrated solo percussionist.
Glennie’s exquisite sensitivity to vibration and remarkable talent for composing music is emblematic of the powerful relationship that millions of deaf and hearing-disabled people have to music. Many go to concerts and enjoy music in their homes through touch, vision, and movement.1 A select few, like Glennie, play musical instruments or sing professionally. But as scientists learn more about how our bodies and brains process vibration, they are producing a wealth of new research that will help deaf people better appreciate the complexities and emotional range of music, both as listeners and performers. In the process, they are also discovering how music moves through us to create symphonies of feeling.
It’s Disability Pride Month. So why is nobody talking about it?
By Cathy Reay: For Complete Post, Click Here…
“This term ‘disability’ coupled with ‘pride’, is sometimes seen as oxymoronic by able-bodied people and that alone makes me even prouder to call myself disabled and proud.”
If there’s one thing you do this Disability Pride Month, please make it listening to disabled people. You may have spotted awareness-raising posts from disabled content creators on social media, many of which serve as a call to arms to creators’ mostly non-disabled audiences, asking them to publicly support and show appreciation for the disabled community in July and also beyond.
Even with the effort some of us put into telling the world about it, year on year Disability Pride Month tends to pass by largely unnoticed by those outside our community. There are a few parades that take place annually in the U.S., but Brighton is the only city in the UK to have held a parade, the last of which — thanks to the pandemic — was three years ago.
It is perhaps of little surprise, given the mistreatment of and lack of funding for disabled people under their rule, that lawmakers in both the U.S. and UK continually fail to acknowledge the celebration.
Another kick in the teeth is that, even in a month that is supposed to be about us, I haven’t seen any big brands include disabled people in their advertising campaigns. Based on my own experience and that of some of my peers, the amount of work I’m assigned in July is rarely more than any other month.
Opinion: On the Delicate Topic of Youth Suicide, Journalists Are Faltering
BY REBECCA RUIZ: For Complete Post, Click Here…
Evocative narratives about suicide can make for gripping journalism, but they can also cause harm.
N APRIL, THE NEW YORKER published a searching feature story about child suicide. It told the story of a 12-year-old boy, describing how he evaded adult supervision and other safeguards to take his own life, and conveying in graphic detail the condition of the boy’s body after his death. The piece was lauded by Nieman Storyboard as “powerful” and “riveting.”
The article is part of a string of recent coverage that has grappled with the worrisome rise in youth suicides in the U.S., seeking to answer the heartbreaking question: What convinces a child or teenager that the future holds no promise? Stories in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets have painted portraits of children in dire emotional and psychological pain who died by suicide, survived their attempts, or contemplated death.
On one hand, the publications are to be applauded for taking an unflinching look at a crisis that isn’t abating, and that appears to be worsening for non-White, non-Hispanic groups. Reporting that looks at the many risk factors for suicidal feelings and behavior, and the difficulty of accessing effective treatment, can point to system failures and potential solutions. It can help those who’ve struggled with suicidal thoughts — and their loved ones — feel less alone.
But reporting on suicide is an ethically complicated, high-stakes endeavor that, if done irresponsibly, can contribute to the spread of suicidal behavior. So it’s worth asking: Are these stories getting it right?
Leaders in the suicide prevention field have long discussed how to best report on these deaths. Many of the best practices that emerged from those discussions appear in “Recommendations for Media Reporting on Suicide,” a set of guidelines informed by researchers and journalists, which was released in 2011. The American Association of Suicidology released similar guidelines in 2019, developed with Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. Other guides have focused on the U.K., such as the Suicide Reporting Toolkit and the Samaritans’ Media Guidelines for Reporting Suicide.
Although the details of these reporting guides vary, they echo a shared set of general principles: Journalists should omit information about the method and location, guard against sensationalistic language and framing, refrain from glorifying or romanticizing the death, and avoid suggesting that the death served a purpose or function. The idea is that if readers who are already at high risk identify closely with the subject of a suicide story or the method of death, they may be more prone to act on suicidal thoughts themselves.
Feeling addicted to food? Your parents’ drinking habits may impact your risk
From UM News: For Complete Post, Click Here…
People with a parent with a history of alcohol problems are at greater risk for showing signs of addiction to highly processed foods, a new University of Michigan study found.
These foods, such as ice cream, chocolate, pizza and fries, contain unnaturally high amounts of refined carbohydrates and fats that may trigger an addictive response in some people.
U-M researchers wanted to know if a major risk factor for addiction—a parent with alcohol problems—predicted an increased risk of addiction to highly processed foods.
“People who have a family history of addiction may be at greater risk for developing a problematic relationship with highly processed foods, which is really challenging in a food environment where these foods are cheap, accessible and heavily marketed,” said Lindzey Hoover, U-M psychology graduate student and the study’s lead author.
But addictive responses didn’t end with food, as people with food addiction were also more likely to exhibit personal problems with alcohol, cannabis, tobacco and vaping, the research showed.
How to Dismantle Systemic Ableism, According to Disabled People
Fom DAME: For Complete Post, Click Here…
Since March 2020, Angela Meriquez Vázquez has been living with migraines, fatigue, brain fog, heart palpitations, and insomnia. The debilitating symptoms Vazquez experiences are a result of long COVID. According to an April 2022 study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, around 30 percent of people in the United States who contract COVID-19 develop long COVID, a post-viral syndrome that has wide-ranging symptoms, and like other post-viral conditions such as post-polio syndrome, can have a significant impact on people’s lives.
While trying to navigate her own new chronic health issues, Vázquez, who is the interim president of Body Politic, a wellness collective that has evolved to also support long COVID survivors, advocates for more research and improved policies related to long COVID.
“We are facing a wave of disability poverty with long COVID that we’ll be unable to grapple with if we cannot keep people in their homes and accessing necessary healthcare,” Vázquez said, who also has noted that Latinx people like herself and other people of color are more likely to develop this post-viral condition. In short, the pandemic has been called a mass-disabling event and shone a light on the many struggles the disability community faces: medication shortages, delays in care, inaccessibility, and poverty, and more. This reality shift could also be a trigger for change.
In 1990, survivors of polio helped push the United States to create the Americans with Disabilities Act, which turns 32 at the end of July. While it is not without its flaws, the concept of a social model of disability can be helpful when looking at disability justice solutions. This model operates under the assumption that people are not harmed by disability, but rather, there are societal barriers that make it difficult for disabled people to access care, services, and generally succeed in society. Accommodations knock down barriers, as does inclusion.
For disability rights to truly succeed, we need a combination of changes at the local, state, and national levels. And there are individual actions each of us can take as well.
Nothing About Us Without Us
The Brookline Art Studio Helping Artists with Disabilities Thrive
From NPR: For Complete Post, Click Here…
(video on Youtube)
Gateway Arts in Brookline, Massachusetts, is an internationally acclaimed studio art center for adults with disabilities. Established in 1973, the center has served hundreds pursue a career in the arts, even selling pieces and giving 50% of profits to the artists. With staff mentorship, artists choose their mediums and develop products to sell, developing skills in various mediums.
Mark Bullock hails the evolution of Wheelchair tennis as popularity continues to rise
From LTA Tennis: For Complete Post, Click Here…
Few can match Mark Bullock’s 30-plus years of experience in Paralympic and disability sport – and even fewer can claim to be as influential in its rise. With four Paralympics and two Olympic Games under his belt – in various capacities from coach to technical delegate – Bullock has been at the forefront of a journey that reached a peak last week at the All England Club.
After last year’s Ladies’ Wheelchair Singles Final was played on No.1 Court at The Championships, this year’s tournament saw British hero Alfie Hewett playing on the show court in front of huge crowds, highlighting the pass appeal of the sport.
We caught up with Bullock at the LTA’s British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships to shine a light on the inexorable rise of the sport over the last 30 years.
Tell us about your early experiences in wheelchair tennis?