News
Hop on the bandwagon of the Walgreens/AARP Wellness Tour!
Abilities Expo Chicagoland attendees are in for a very healthy treat on July 9-11 at the Schaumburg Convention Center! As if exposure to cutting-edge products and services, dynamic workshops and fun activities wasn’t enough, they will also get a glimpse into their overall state of wellness…for free.

Thanks to the dual efforts of Walgreens and AARP, the Wellness Tour will make a stop on the Abilities Expo show floor to offer six essential health screenings, valued at more than $140.

The philosophy is simple, yet powerful. Many life-threatening diseases can be identified through these Wellness Tour health screenings long before the actual symptoms manifest. According to Walgreens President & CEO Gregory Wasson, “Early detection is the best way to keep people healthy and lower our future healthcare costs in this country."

Tests will be administered by Certified Medical Screeners and include:

• Total Cholesterol Levels - Screenings raise awareness of high blood cholesterol as a risk factor for coronary heart disease and are the first step toward modifying lifestyle to reduce that risk.
• Blood Pressure - High blood pressure is one of the most common chronic conditions in adults; however, people with high blood pressure usually don't have symptoms, so they often don't know that they have it until it is measured.
• Bone Density - Bone density testing is a valuable tool in the diagnosis of osteoporosis and is a fairly accurate predictor of a person's risk of fractures.
• Glucose Levels - Blood glucose testing is used to screen healthy individuals for diabetes and pre-diabetes because diabetes is a common disease that begins with few symptoms.
• Waist Circumference, Body Composition/Body Mass Index - The nation's scales are going up and, therefore, raising public awareness about the problem of obesity and the risk of excess weight is critical.

Representatives will also be on hand from Walgreens Full Service Home Health Care Stores to answer questions on products and services offered by these unique establishments, conveniently found in four locations around Chicagoland. These stores are fully staffed to service all Home Medical Equipment requirements and ongoing patient care needs for caregivers.

The 2-year Wellness Tour rolled out in April 2009 with nine customized coach busses and won’t stop until 2.5 million Americans from 3,000 communities in more than 300 cities across the United States and Puerto Rico are dialed in to the state of their own well being. We’re talking in excess of $60 million dollars worth of free healthcare. Now that’s reform everybody can get behind!

Review the schedule to find out when the Tour is coming to a city near you.

Feature
Product Spotlight: The Manuscale®
The Manuscale® by Heron Technologies will be featured in the Mopane Global Associates booth at the Chicagoland Abilities Expo on July 9-11, 2010.

You’re flying solo and are dining out at a new restaurant in town. You roll up in your traditional wheelchair to find a flight of steps between you and the entrance and no ramp in sight. What do you do?

Before the Manuscale®, the first manual wheelchair to climb stairs, these architectural barriers would bring you to a skidding halt. Now, thanks to the innovative concepts by Heron Technologies, we have a product that is revolutionizing the idea of accessibility and the day-to-day lives of people struggling with limited mobility.

The Manuscale® operates as a classic wheelchair until your environment poses a challenge that wheels alone can’t overcome and requires the deployment of the “escalator.” This mechanism is implemented using a simple lever and is comprised of four rotating cruciform. The rider spins the chair’s wheels—which are elevated—to ascend and descend stairs or other obstacles.

Watch the video to see the Manuscale® in action. (Even if you don’t read French, the image says it all.)

The ramifications of the Manuscale’s® unique propulsion feature are as exciting as they are far-reaching. People with disabilities can widen their world to include those places that are wheelchair-unfriendly. As this device literally levels the playing field, they no longer need to avoid establishments blocked by steps or multilevel buildings lacking an elevator. The autonomy engendered by the Manuscale® is priceless. According to Mr. Gyamier, avid Manuscale® user, “Just one word will describe what you have allowed me to enjoy. FREEDOM.”

About Mopane Global Associates
Mopane Global Associates is the exclusive Manuscale® licensee for all of the Americas. With this patented product and actual working prototypes, they offer the established wheelchair manufacturers a unique opportunity for a win-win strategic alliance that would allow exclusive manufacturing license rights.

Incorporating the only working patented manual stair-climbing wheelchair into its existing product line will certainly give the selected strategic alliance participant a unique position in the world market.

For more on the Manuscale® and Mopane Global Associates, visit www.mopaneglobal.com.

Feature
Happy Anniversary, ADA!
By Mike Ervin

Mike is an Abilities Expo Ambassador as well as a disabilities rights advocate and a writer for New Mobility magazine, spinalcord.org and other national publications.

On July 26, 1990, 20 summers ago, I sat on the south lawn of the White House and watched President George H. W. Bush sign the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Here in Chicago, we held a celebratory ribbon-cutting event outside City Hall when the first lift-equipped public transit busses arrived two years later in 1992. It was our first big ADA triumph. But today, every Chicago city bus has a ramp that flips out so someone in a wheelchair can just roll right on. This is a simple routine event that happens hundreds of times every day. There is no cause for fanfare.

It’s ironic that the power of the ADA is most obvious not in moments of great triumph, but in those routine moments that breeze by so smoothly that we’ll not notice them unless we stop and take stock. We take the bus to the store. We make our purchases. We stop at the restaurant for lunch. We stop at city hall to pay our damn parking tickets. We go home. All goes according to plan.

That’s 20 years of the ADA in action. The more time passes, the more absurd it seems that not long ago, such a mundane execution of the to-do list was often a mighty struggle. The thought of it is so ridiculous it makes us want to laugh.

Twenty summers ago, I didn’t try to predict where the ADA might deliver us all in 2010. I just wanted to enjoy the day. But had I thought about it, I guess I would have hoped that there would be an abundance of days that would make me want to laugh with amazement when I remembered how things once were.

Of course, sometimes it’s painfully obvious that post-ADA America is still a work in progress. People with disabilities in rural areas are still entirely too isolated. Our unemployment rate is still staggering. State institutions and nursing homes are not relics of a dismal past.

But when ADA Day comes around, I plan to celebrate by looking back on all the injustices that have been obliterated, and having a good laugh.

Chicago’s 7th Annual Disability Pride Parade “Pride Revolution” will be held on Saturday, July 24, 2010. For more info, visit www.disabilityprideparade.com or watch this video.

 
News
The Power of the Dance
By Sarah Galbraith

Sarah is the Abilities Expo Education and Events Director and also provides consulting services for other disability organizations.

Dance/Movement Therapy, or DMT, is relatively new and offers the great potential for broadening one’s self-expression and achieving healing. The field began in the 1940’s and 50’s, and today Dance/Movement Therapists use dance and movement to facilitate the healing process for the individuals they work with.

How One Person Benefitted:
To give you a sense of how this type of therapy might work for you, consider this story of what one person achieved. “John” (real name changed) had a stroke as a young adult which resulted in paralysis. The stroke also limited his verbal ability, creating frustration for John as he tried to share and express his thoughts.

John did retain mobility in one arm and through physical and occupational therapy was able to gain functionality—to write, eat and move items. But his ability to express what he was thinking, what he was feeling, was still quite limited. Though working with a dance/movement therapist John learned to express his whole life through his one arm. Now his arm is his vehicle for self-expression. Imagine a dancer who tells a story through movement and you’ll have a sense of what John learned to do with his arm. The therapy brought him greater freedom and an ability to participate more fully in his life.

More About Dance/Movement Therapy:
DMT can look very different for each individual—from a dance party to meditation to using movement to role play through an idea or theme. It differs from other types of therapy by including the creative process with the intention for health and healing. The benefits can be far ranging and will vary from person to person depending on their needs. Therapists work with each individual to develop a unique treatment plan. Because of its wonderful versatility, this therapy medium can benefit anyone who seeks healing or growth by working with a therapist. Therapists work with everyone including people with disabilities, children, seniors, teenagers and women who are pregnant.

Watching a DMT session might give you the impression of physical therapy or meditation when, in fact, there are some important differences. DMT centers on our fundamental ability to move—from something as simple as our breath to the movement of our arms, legs and body. According to the American Dance Therapy Association (www.adta.org), Dance/Movement Therapists see dance as a core function “involving a direct expression of one’s self through one’s body.” With guidance from the therapist and the incorporation of creative intent, this therapy medium “can foster creative self-expression, and provides safe and effective options for relating to others and coping with the environment.”

Would you like to know more?
Visit Abilities Expo Chicago and join us for a Dance/Movement Therapy Demonstration on Saturday, July 10, 2010 from 12:00pm to 12:30pm. Laura Downey, a Dance Educator, Dance/Movement Therapist, and Certified Movement Analyst from the Department of Dance/Movement Therapy & Counseling at Columbia College Chicago will share the benefits of creative movement with attendees. This event is suitable for all—come to participate or to watch.

Finding a Therapist:
To locate a dance/movement therapist in your area visit the American Dance Therapy Association’s website at www.adta.org. ADTA has rigorous standards for their therapists and some states license them as well. If you don’t find a therapist close by, you may want to work with your local organizations to bring a therapist in for a day or two to share the benefits of this form of therapy.

Feature
Will Zach Anner Be the Next Big Thing?

Oprah and reality TV producer extraordinaire Mark Burnett (you may have heard of a little thing called Survivor and The Apprentice) have embarked on a quest for that one person with enough star quality to host a talk show on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Auditions for this coveted gig are taking place in major cities across the country and through online video submissions. Of the more than 6,000 video entries, one stand-out has surged past the competition—comedian, travel talk show host hopeful and wheelchair user Zach Anner.

Anner’s hysterical 3-minute pitch has taken the Internet by storm, garnering more than 8.8 million online votes and rising. In it, he shares that he has cerebral palsy which he insists, “is the sexiest of the palsies.” He outlines his plan to create a travel show to inspire people who never thought they could travel, one that is less concerned with the planning and more attuned to the adventure, spontaneity and fun. This self-proclaimed lady-magnet has set out to prove that “no obstacle is too big, no mountain too high, no volcano too hot and no Atlantis too underwater or fictional!”

See for yourself!

When the contest ends at 11:59 pm on July 3, only the creators of the five most popular videos will move on to Los Angeles to join a pool of finalists. Producers will pare this talent down to 10 people who will participate in a television competition that will determine the Next Big TV Star. The last person standing wins their OWN talk show.

The media has already smiled on Anner who has appeared on Fox News Channel’s Red-eye. John Mayer plugged the budding star in his video blog and echoed what he believes to be America’s sentiments saying, ”You’re really funny…I want to see this show. I want to see more Zach.” He’s also offered to create the talk show theme song so, if Anner wins, he’s set.

And in true star tradition, Anner has already had his first scandal. Controversy surrounding the video voting tabulations cropped up earlier this week when another candidate jumped 600,000 votes in an hour and Anner’s video slid briefly to second place. Allegations that the network—and even Oprah herself—were responsible for rigging the votes abounded. In response, an OWN representative has assured that all contentions of impropriety will be investigated and addressed to maintain a fair process.

What’s Anner’s take? He told Entertainment Weekly that Oprah “is probably too busy building schools and helping children to even notice someone like me.”

So...he’s cool, he’s funny and he’s not full of himself. It’s official. We love him.

If you want to make sure Zach get his shot in LA, click here.

News
Are you an employed person with a disability? Georgia Tech wants to hear from you!

The Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA) at Georgia Tech houses the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Workplace Accommodations (WorkRERC). WorkRERC’s focus is to provide better understanding of the needs for accommodations addressing employment barriers faced by people with disabilities. The goal is to enable equitable access to employment, enhanced employment outcomes and increased participation in the workplace for people with disabilities. 

Currently, WorkRERC has a survey underway that examines the relationships between functional ability, job requirements and accommodation use. You are eligible to take this survey if you have a disability or loss of function AND are employed or volunteer. The survey is anonymous, and takes an average of 30 minutes to complete. You will have the option of saving your responses to continue the survey later. For more information and to take the survey, click here. Those with difficulty accessing the computer can complete the survey by telephone. Please call (404) 894-0561 to schedule a phone survey. 

WorkRERC hopes to engage as many individuals with disabilities as possible in their ongoing research. They have established the CATEA Consumer Network (CCN) to ensure that individuals with disabilities participate in all aspects of WorkRERC’s research and development activities. Benefits of CCN membership include receiving information about newly developed products before they are currently available; invitations to participate in focus groups, product field tests or surveys; and a periodic newsletter of CATEA related activities including notices about paid and unpaid research opportunities. Additional information is available on the CCN website.

For more information on all of CATEA’s projects, please stop by their booth at the Abilities Expo in Atlanta, October 15-17, 2010.