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Disability FactsPrevalence of Disability among Americans One in 5 Americans has a disability. One in 10 Americans has a severe disability.
When looking at the working age population, 18.7 percent of Americans age 15 to
64 have a disability; 8.7 percent have a severe disability. Emerging Populations of People with Disabilities Emerging populations of people with disabilities include people with AIDS, Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), violence-induced neurological damage, repetitive
motion syndromes, childhood asthma, drug addiction and environmental illnesses. Each
varies widely in its origin and rehabilitative need. The unifying factor in most of these
emergent disabilities is their association with poverty and minority status. Employees with disabilities rate average or better in job performance A DuPont survey found 90 percent rated average or better in job performance (in
terms of safety, performance of job duties, attendance and job stability/turnover)
compared to 95 percent for employees without disabilities. Chronic Health Conditions Multiply with Age Over 40 percent of people with chronic health conditions experience other chronic
conditions--comorbidities--as well. As people age, they are much more likely to
experience multiple chronic conditions. Chronic conditions most strongly associated
with disability among older adults include heart disease, arthritis, hip fracture, diabetes,
stroke,visual impairment and cognitive impairment. Increase in Disabilities among People Under 45 Disability in the adult population ages 18 to 44 is increasing. Between the years 1990
and 1994, there was a 16 percent increase in adults with a disability. Increases have
come in mental disorders, back impairments and asthma. Disability Facts are from the Courage Center, a nationally-known, not-for-profit
rehabilitation and resource center for people with disabilities at www.courage.org.
For the full list of facts, please visit:
www.courage.org/about/tips.asp?id=9
Rising above disability to climb Everest
Posted January 3, 2005
Charlotte native's aid helps Sherpa with prosthesis reach top of world
BRUCE HENDERSON
Staff Writer
Strong and hardy at high altitudes, Sherpa guides have accompanied Mount Everest expeditions since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reached the summit 51 years ago.
Charlotte native Tom McMillan found a way to repay the Nepalese mountaineers. The Everest expedition he led last spring allowed a Sherpa to become the first below-the-knee amputee to reach the top.
Nawang Sherpa, who lost his left leg when a bus hit his motorcycle in Kathmandu, reached the top of the world -- 29,028 feet -- at 8:15 a.m. May 16. The Himalayan peaks below looked like the waves of an angry sea.
"When I got there, I had a tear from my eye," Nawang later told GQ magazine, "because I was thinking back to when I got hurt and who saved my life, who gave me the (prosthetic) leg, who helped me, who looked out for me. I remembered all those people when I got to the summit."
Those people are why McMillan named his expedition Friendship Beyond Borders.
ExplorersWeb, which covers such expeditions, said Nawang was the first below-knee amputee to summit a peak of 26,000 feet or higher. Among hundreds of expeditions, the Web site gave McMillan's a special mention in its Best of 2004 list.
"As long as I remember," McMillan said during a holiday visit with his parents, "I wanted to do something exciting, but I didn't know what." Magazine photos finally inspired the son of a Charlotte doctor. Climbing was "like finding religion."
While still in his early teens, he and a friend hiked the length of the Smoky Mountains. At 17, he spent a summer amid the towering granite domes of California's Yosemite National Park.
Since then, the 48-year-old software engineer has climbed mountains, rock and ice all over the world, including multiple trips to the Alps and the Andes.
Adventure runs in the family. A decade ago, McMillan's younger brother, Peter, re-created a Vickers Vimy biplane and its 11,000-mile flight, first accomplished in 1919, from London to Australia.
Tom McMillan met Nawang Sherpa, whose surname is common among his ethnic group, in 1998. Their expedition was to scale 26,545-foot Annapurna, a Nepalese peak that is 10th-highest in the world. The trip was aborted when an avalanche destroyed their base camp.
After Nawang lost his leg in 2000, McMillan's wife, Linda, organized the Annapurna expedition members to pay his passage to the United States. The University of California-San Francisco donated a $20,000 prosthesis. Nawang stayed at the McMillans' Marin County, Calif., home.
Ed Hommer, an American climber who lost both lower legs in an Alaska airplane crash, met Nawang and had him fitted for a new leg in Minnesota. But their plan to scale Everest together in 2003 ended when Hommer was killed in a training climb.
Then an Everest expedition, previously unthinkable because of its expense, fell in Tom McMillan's lap.
Hamid Moghadam, the chairman and CEO of the San Francisco real estate firm where McMillan works, offered $25,000 of his own money to make it happen. Other private and corporate donors came up with an additional $35,000.
McMillan immediately thought of Nawang, 33, who still harbored hopes of becoming an Everest guide. Three other Sherpas joined the climb.
In the weeks before the attempt, Nawang skipped most of the training treks that let climbers adjust to Everest's thin air.
"He may be the first person to summit Mount Everest with a prosthesis, but without training for it," said Linda McMillan. "He was afraid of hurting his (artificial) leg."
At 9 p.m. May 15, during a break in the weather, the team set off from its base camp.
McMillan's only problem during his final push to the top was with his glasses, which froze over because of condensation from his oxygen mask.
"There definitely was a moment when I thought, `I'm this close to the summit and I'm not going to make it because I can't see,' " McMillan said.
Because he was busy taking pictures and video footage in the thin air, McMillan scarcely remembers his 90 minutes at the top. But he's jubilant in the tape of his satellite-phone call to his boss-benefactor in San Francisco.
Nawang celebrated, too, proudly posing for photos with the Nepalese flag and pictures of his country's king and queen.
"It was nice," the man with the titanium and carbon-fiber leg later told McMillan, "but so hard to get there."
On The Web
www.friendshipbeyondborders.com.
President Signs Assistive Technology Act Victory for Millions of People with Disabilities Who Strive for Independence
(26 October 2004) President Bush yesterday signed the Assistive Technology Act of 2004, which will ensure that individuals with disabilities throughout the US and its territories have access to the technology they need to help them be independent in school, at home, the workplace and in the community. This legislation represents an important commitment to people with disabilities from the President and the Congress.
For a copy of the Press Release Signing Press Release ATAP Signing
10 schools in area fail standards
By Adam Leech
Ten of the 19 schools in the Rockingham News coverage area made the preliminary list of 76 schools in the state that could face stricter state oversight because standardized test scores did not make "adequate yearly progress" for the second consecutive year.
Schools are designated as not making adequate yearly progress after the first year of substandard scores. If the school fails to make AYP the second year the school receives the label of "in need of improvement" and must create a plan to improve scores in areas where they are weak. A third year would mean more extreme corrective action.
Overall, superintendents in the area said they are pleased with the results of the New Hampshire Education Assessment and Improvement Program (NHEIAP) test scores. But each will have to create a state-approved improvement plan for their schools that did not meet the standards, imposed under the No Child Left Behind act.
Local superintendents not only share the same challenge of creating a plan, they also share the reason why they are facing that challenge: substandard scores by their special education students. And each believes that is not fair.
The AYP standards took effect last year, and this year was the first that schools were eligible for the "in need of improvement" label.
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/rock/08202004/news/33206.htm
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State of New Hampshire
Governor's Commission
on
Disability |
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The Commission’s goal is to remove the barriers, architectural or attitudinal, which bar persons with disabilities from participating in the mainstream of society.
In order to lead full and productive lives, persons with disabilities need employment, housing, education, recreation and other opportunities now available to persons without disabilities.
The Commission’s office in Concord receives over 1,000 information and referral requests per month. It responds with straight answers to persons with disabilities, service providers, legislators, and state and local officials. In an effort to eliminate barriers, the Commission provides information about the many services, laws, and regulations that affect citizens with disabilities.
The Commission also publishes a weekly newspaper column, “Beyond the Barriers”, and a newsletter, THE BLUE SHEET, highlighting issues of interest to persons with disabilities and their advocates.
Link http://www.state.nh.us/disability/
Understanding Medicare/Medicaid
The National Health Policy Forum is pleased to announce the availability of the electronic briefing book Understanding Medicare and Medicaid:
Fundamentals and Issues for the New Congress. This briefing book was distributed at an invitation-only, two-day briefing attended exclusively by congressional staff. The briefings were requested by senior staff from the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees to provide an overview of the Medicare, Medicaid, and State Children's Health Insurance programs.
The sessions featured experts from the Government Accountability Office, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, Congressional Research Service, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in addition to other public and private entities. This book contains links to the sessions and presentations and handouts as well as to additional reports, Web sites, and other resources.
http://nhpf.ags.com/M&M_E.brief.book/Contents.htm |
