|
Greetings!
It's hotter than blazes out there, but we've got cool stuff for you! First, read about the Gold-medal winning octogenarian at the Veteran Games. Next, check out the new pre-fab and fast-build accessible apartments to add on to your home--perhaps enabling you or a loved one to bypass a nursing home! Then, (very exciting!) is the move to hold competitions for all (able and disabled athletes) together! Also, peruse the great piece on what 20 years of the ADA has meant to us all and finally, read about the Heritage Christian Legacy Mile and 5K that supports compassionate care for people with disabilities!
Read on,
and as always, if you have a
need or a question, call us at Monroe Wheelchair, we are
here for you!
| A Prefab Accessible Home Addition May Let Some Bypass a Nursing Home |
 |
|
An ingenious answer to the need for accessibility
has been developed to help homeowners keep their
loved ones at home.
One product, called PALS, or Practical Assisted Living
Structures, are wheelchair-accessible bathroom and bedroom modules that can be attached to or
removed from any house in one week. The modules,
which Rockfall Co. sells for $55,000, are meant
primarily for the disabled, whether they're
elderly relatives or young war veterans.
But, Rockfall is not alone in the immediate
assisted-living construction market. Indiana-
based Next Door Garage Apartments - motto: "Now
mom can live next door!" - builds handicapped-
accessible living quarters inside empty two-car
garages in 10 days.
"Right now,... "Many people go to nursing homes
because they don't have a handicapped bathroom
and a first-floor bedroom facility. We're looking
to give people a better alternative," says a
Rockfall spokesman.
Rockfall's web site claims
a $300,000+ savings over a nursing home after 3
years.
For More on Rockfall Click Here!
|
| 86-year-old Doris Merrill Rolls Away With 4 Medals from Veterans Games! |
|
Doris Merrill, a Navy veteran who suffers from a
MS and an SCI, earned four medals at the 30th annual
National Veterans Wheelchair Games in Denver
earlier this month. Merrill participated in air
guns, slalom, motorized wheelchair rally, ramp
bowling and the Powerchair 200. Travelling from
Pennsylvania to Denver to compete, the 86-year-old returned with four medals.
But gold and silver medals aren't new for
Merrill - she's been winning them for the past
decade. The excitement comes when people overlook
her disability, she says. "It's a bridge to the
walking world," Merrill said. "People forget my
disability and that is the greatest
compliment."
The games, the largest annual wheelchair sports
competition in the world, offers competition in 17 sports to
U.S. and British veterans who use wheelchairs.
The games promote rehabilitation through
rigorous competition in such events as
basketball, rugby, softball, hand cycling and
others.
But for Merrill, gold medals are not enough.
Merrill loves to compete. "I swim like a dandy," she says, "and I just love beating the men!"
|
| There's a Move for Able and Disabled Athletes to Compete Together, if Not Against Each Other |
|
|
The 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi will be an
inclusive event, with para sports held along with
able-bodied events. But a global debate still
rages on whether the lines between able and
disabled should be erased.
South African Natalie Du Toit, pictured above, whose left leg is
amputated below the knee, qualified in 2008 for
the Beijing Olympics. She became the first
athlete with a disability to qualify for the
final of an event in the largest able-bodied
sporting meet, the Olympics.
Natalie has won over 15 gold medals at various
international events for disabled sportspersons
and, in the Beijing Olympics, finished in 16th
place in the 10,000 meter swim, just over 1.22
minutes behind the winner.
While a few disabled athletes do qualify to
compete against the able-bodied in certain
sports, the movement globally is not so much for
the disabled to compete against the able-bodied,
but for the events to be held concurrently rather
than Para-sports following as in the
Paralympics.
|
| For All Your Mobility Needs, Call Monroe Wheelchair! |
|
|
You can depend on all of us at Monroe Wheelchair for
the latest
technology in medical equipment and the highest
quality healthcare.
Our staff has a combined 300 years of experience in
the medical equipment industry and Monroe's on-site
owner, Doug Westerdahl, continually monitors and
works together with his staff to improve customer
service.
Call us at 1-888-546-8595
today!
|
| Walking, Running or Rolling, Join the Christian Legacy Mile and 5K on August 14th! |
|
|
Join the Heritage Christian Legacy Mile & 5K on Saturday, Aug. 14, 2010 at Monroe Community College, 1000 E. Henrietta Rd. The Legacy Mile & 5K is a family-friendly benefit that celebrates providing compassionate care for people with disabilities - now and in the future. The event also celebrates members of the Heritage Christian Legacy Society, those who have given generously though life insurance policies, charitable gift annuities, real estate or bequests. Their thoughtful planning ensures that their loved ones, and generations of people, will always have access to the highest quality of care even in challenging economic times. 5K registration fee is $20. There is no fee for those who walk the mile. Sign up or donate at www.legacymileand5K.kintera.org, or call (585) 340-2000.
|
|
Americans With Disabilities Act turns 20 Years Old! |
|
|
|
"There's so much more to accomplish!" Pictured above is a celebrant at the ADA birthday event.
A generation has passed since Rene David Luna,
54, chained his wheelchair in front of a Chicago
CTA bus and swung a sledgehammer to make a point
about the city's sidewalks.
Since then, he said, the world has changed in
ways that younger people cannot imagine.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of that
effort's culmination in the landmark Americans
With Disabilities Act, signed into law by
President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990.
Joe Russo, a 45-year-old attorney who is
deputy commissioner of compliance in Mayor
Richard Daley's Office for People With
Disabilities, said it is a mark of the law's
achievement.
"I'm glad," he said. "I want them to take it for
granted."
Things were different when Russo, who has used a
wheelchair most of his life as a result of a
degenerative disease, was attending law school at
New York University in the late 1980s. The
campus, he said, had virtually no accommodations,
forcing him to use backdoor delivery entrances.
Luna had similar experiences on the campus of
DePaul University in the early 1980s after a car
crash left him partly paralyzed. The campus had
some wheelchair ramps, but they were in places
that didn't make sense, he said.
"I'd have to go all the way around the block to
the get to the cafeteria," Luna recalled.
Graduation led to new barriers, said Russo:
"Getting a job was unbelievable. Employers would
openly tell you they would not hire someone in a
wheelchair."
Both men came to the realization that such
barriers were not going to fall without a good
shove.
Luna joined efforts to push the Chicago Transit
Authority to make its mainline buses accessible
to disabled riders, instead of operating a
separate system of door-to-door transportation
that Luna says left the disabled dependent and
invisible.
"To me," said Luna, "this was really the point:
not only getting from Point A to Point B but the
inclusion and integration of disabled people."
Inclusion, he said, was key to obtaining full
civil rights for the disabled.
"All of these things emerged because disabled
people became visible," said Luna, whose efforts
ultimately took him to Washington, D.C., where he
was invited to witness the legislation's signing.
Not long after, Russo was hired by the Department
of Justice to enforce the ADA, bringing a case
against the Empire State Building, among other
enforcement efforts.
But amid the recognition of achievements,
disabled activists said there is much left to do.
Key among the issues in Illinois is the
resolution of a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling
that held that the unnecessary
institutionalization of the disabled constituted
discrimination under the ADA.
Read More!
|
|
