Toyota technology has brain waves move wheelchair

INDIANA – Toyota Motor Corp. says it has developed a way of steering a wheelchair by just detecting brain waves, without the person having to move a muscle or shout a command. Toyota's system, developed in a collaboration with researchers in Japan, is among the fastest in the world in analyzing brain waves, it said in a release Monday. Past systems required several seconds to read brain waves, but the new technology requires only 125 milliseconds - or 125 thousandths of a second. The new system allows the person on the wheelchair to turn left or right and go forward, almost instantly, according to researchers. Read More!

U.S. Labor Department announces ‘Expectation + opportunity = full participation’ as National Disability Employment Awareness Month theme

WASHINGTON D.C. - The U.S. Department of Labor today announced “Expectation + Opportunity = Full Participation” as the official theme for October’s National Disability Employment Awareness Month. It is intended to urge employers, as they seek to fill positions, to embrace the richness of America’s diversity by considering the talents of all workers, including workers with disabilities.This year’s theme emphasizes the vision of the Labor Department’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP): a world in which people with disabilities have unlimited employment opportunities. Read More!

Supreme Court Rules Public Must Pay for Private Special Education

WASHINGTON D.C. - Children with disabilities who require special education and related services to access learning in schools found support today in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, Forest Grove School District v. T.A., No. 08-305 (June 22, 2009). The Court held that when schools do not appropriately identify and provide services to these students, the student may be placed in a private school to meet the special education needs, and the school district may be responsible for reimbursing parents and legal guardians for the tuition to these schools. Read More!

Wheelchair tai chi teacher Teddy Alvis spreads message of hope

ALABAMA - Teddy Alvis learned tai chi from Master Liu of the Liu Institute of Martial Arts. "I sleep better, eat better, feel better, focus better," he says.MOBILE, Ala. -- The first thing you notice about Teddy Alvis is that he's in a wheelchair. But then you notice his energy, his enthusiasm and his big smile, and you no longer notice the wheelchair. Many of the movements of this ancient practice are based on animals. When he mimics a tiger with clawed hands and a ferocious growl, his audience follows, sounding a lot like tigers...Read More

Phase II Iplex trial fails, drug might have helped MD sufferers

WASHINGTON D.C. - Insmed Inc.'s stock lost more than half of its value Thursday after the Richmond, Va.-based firm said Iplex (mecasermin rinfabate), a complex of recombinant human insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and its binding protein IGFBP-3, failed to improve endurance, muscle function or strength or quality of life in patients with myotonic muscular dystrophy (MMD), a potentially life-threatening genetic disorder. Insmed declined to comment on the Phase II study results. Read More!

Sisters - one 96, the other 101 - know how to live

FLORIDA - Sisters Dollie Garee, 96, and Maizie Hewitt, 101, have mastered that one. They are prime examples of how to enjoy living every day. “I’ve always been happy,” Dollie said. “I’ve had ups and downs like anyone else — losing a friend or a part of our family — but as a whole, I’ve been happy. You should depend on the Lord for a lot of help. He sure has given it to us.” “I’ve never been anything else but happy,” Maizie said. “I’ve never been a broody person. Why be in the dumps?” Read More!

Are pesticides causing Parkinson's disease?

A January 2009 consensus statement from CHE, in collaboration with the Parkinson's Action Network, a patient advocacy group, found that there was "limited suggestive evidence of an association" between pesticides and Parkinson's, and between farming or agricultural work and Parkinson's. This followed by just a few months the publication of Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging, a report co-authored by the Science and Environmental Health Network, a consortium of advocacy groups based in Ames, Iowa; it included a summary of 31 population studies that have looked at the possible connection between pesticide exposure and Parkinson's. Twenty-four of those studies, according to the report, found a positive association...Read More!

Relatively inexpensive new sports wheelchairs aimed at developing countries

U.K. - Two new sports wheelchairs have been designed by charity Motivation in a bid to make sport accessible for disabled people in low-income countries. At the suggestion of the International Paralympic Committee, David Constantine, co-founder of Motivation, has designed the Worldmade Sport in two models - tennis and basketball.‘Elite athletes in many other countries can afford very expensive chairs, but if there’s a group of guys getting together in Kenya and playing in old chairs, they can never get to be viable competitors,’ says Constantine. Read More!

Teacher starts foundation for spinal cord injuries

INDIANA - Three years after suffering a life-changing neck injury, Bret Neylon, a Brownsburg teacher and coach, is starting his own foundation to help others with spinal cord injuries. He has applied for non-profit status for his charity, The Bret Neylon Paralysis Foundation, to help others who don’t have the support he had.Neylon suffered his injury June 17, 2006, during a bicycle race in Wilmington, Ohio. Read More!

Happy Birthday, Lou Gehrig, Yankees Legend

U.S. - Lou Gehrig anchored the Yankees’ “Bronx Bomber” teams of the 1920s, playing in a record-setting 2,130 consecutive games over 14 seasons. On May 2, 1939, feeling weak and sluggish, Gehrig removed himself from the lineup. A month later, he would be diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable disease. He would never play again. Between games of a double-header, Gehrig addressed the crowd: “For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.On June 2, 1941, Lou Gehrig died in his Bronx home. Flags were flown at half-staff in New York and ballparks across the country. Read More!

Botox helps Australian stroke victim to walk again

AUSTRALIA — An Australian stroke victim paralysed for more than 20 years has walked again thanks to anti-wrinkle drug botox, in a case hailed as extraordinary by his medical team. Russell McPhee, 49, was confined to a wheelchair after suffering a severe stroke 23 years ago. But after being injected with botox [which allowed contracted muscles to relax] McPhee can walk around his home unaided and travel up to 100 metres (330 feet) using a walking stick. "It's not just a matter of getting your botox injection then being able to walk in the morning, it takes a lot of hard work," he said. Read More!

Pittsburgh stands in world disability rights spotlight

PENNSYLVANIA - Disability rights leaders from the European Union and around the United States met on the University of Pittsburgh campus to discuss a United Nations treaty on the rights of people with disabilities and to exchange information about access to the built environment, information technology and transportation. The convention on disability rights is the UN's ninth international human rights treaty. Its 50 articles address the rights of the estimated 650 million people with disabilities in the world. Read More!