ENGLISH LIBRARY

The creation of this Library started, initially, as our own personal desire to discover our paralysed body’s needs, to learn about all the available news concerning the Disabilities -worldwide-, to recruit and train our own personal assistants, and help the Greeks with disabilities (specially those with Spinal Cord Injuries) obtain vital information about Living with a Disability, from accurate national and international sources.

There hasn’t been any rehabilitation centre for the spinal cord injured people in Greece, so far. For this reason, we use www.DISABLED.GR as a digital self-help and peer support community.

In addition, the collection of the following articles aims to cover our anglophone disability community’s information needs!

Inside this English library you will find hundreds of articles; mainly concerning Spinal Cord Injuries.

–> Return to Disability NOW Profile
–> Visit the ENGLISH NEWS section

This project is entitled “Practical Guide on Political Participation for Disabled Women” and is partly funded by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, through the “Europe for Citizens” Programme.

The main aims of the project are to increase awareness of the importance of political participation at EU level within disabled women in particular, and at the same time to provide them with instruments and information for facilitating this participation. The main project activities are:
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Recommendations for an European Curriculum for Care Assistants of People with Disabilities
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A video raising awareness for prevention of maltreatment against children with disability.

Sara’s adventure
Sara is a girl, just like many others. Although she is aware of her disability she would like to take part in a dance performance. But she has to convince her mother…. Διάβασε περισσότερα »

Most disability entitlements presuppose living in Greece, as they are mainly provided through social security bodies (health care and medical provisions, cash benefits and assistive equipment), social welfare (benefits and health care for the uninsured) and the Greek Manpower Organization, where it concerns employment. All disability entitlements run on a national scheme, which means that mobility within the country does not obstruct eligibility or access to entitlements.

As regards entitlement of EU citizens and their family members (either EU or third-countries citizens) to disability provisions in Greece, this is dependent on their residency status, with the exception of receiving health-care during a short -stay in Greece (for holders of the European Health Card).
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EASPD (European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities) is a partner in the Inclusion project, which is financed by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union. The main objective of the INCLUSION project is to develop a product which will facilitate the mobility of motor impaired people in open spaces by helping them to track down obstacles or barriers on their way and identify accessible locations. The INCLUSION project will lead to the definition, design, implementation and testing of a device aimed at matching the needs of people in wheelchairs.
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Overall, there has been apparent lack of systematic research with regards to the employment of disabled people in Greece. Research evaluating the impact of active policies and funding programmes intended to promote employment for disabled people is entirely absent. More qualitative research should also focus on the obstacles in accessing employment and the kind of assistance needed within the workplace, so as to feedback to guidelines for implementing equality in employment.
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Since 1999 until 2007 (latest available) disability is not counted in national statistical surveys for social inclusion (monetary terms) and social exclusion (non-monetary indicators such as fulfilling basic needs, social deprivation, quality of life). Data is analysed according to age, sex, work, level of education and type of household.

The rate of individuals below poverty line was 20% in 2007 (set threshold: 6.120€ per year for individuals and 12.852€ for a couple with two dependent children) against 19.6% in 2005. There remains a considerable difference with the EU-25 average at 16%, while the difference for people over 65 is much larger at 28% compared to 18% in EU-25.
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Employment law and policy with regards to disability in Greece is one of the most active fields of action for social inclusion of disabled people. The law involves both mainstream approaches and special activation policies for the employment of disabled people, although the former has only recently been a reality by transposing EU directives for equal treatment and accessibility at work.
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The key features of the community support system in Greece for people with disability are financial empowerment through disability benefits and pensions, provision of aids and equipment and the provision of state-funded community-based or short-term residential rehabilitation services (L2072/1992). Local support started to appear in the form of small pilot projects with Help at Home in 1997 (L5814/1997), and developed through local social services departments and networks of support centres across the country only after 2003 (L3106/03).
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ACCESSIBLE is an EU FP7 project spanning over 36 months.
Started on 1 September 2008, it aims at improving the accessibility of software development products, by introducing a harmonised accessibility methodology into accessible software development processes, using significantly better measurement strategies, methodologies, etc. The envisaged improvement will enable large organisations, SMEs or individuals (developers, designers, etc.) to produce software products of superior accessibility and usability, accompanied with appropriate measures, technologies and tools that improve their overall quality.
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Summary
Background: Regenerative therapy by autologous stem cell implantation may benefit patients with traumatic spinal cord (SCI). Aims: The aim of this study was to analyze the safety and efficacy of autologous stem cell implantation for traumatic SCI and BI in a clinical setting. Patients and Methods: Eighty one patients (74 with SCI), age between 18 and 65 (median 43), were included in the study. Fifteen to 40×106 CD34+ cells per patient were implanted. Διάβασε περισσότερα »

“We’ll get her taken care of, but he can’t go through the bar with you,” the hostess at a local restaurant told Matt Rosbrugh pointing to his 5-year-old son, Lucas, sitting on his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, but he will be going with us,” Matt snapped back as he made his way down the ramp and through the barroom to his table.
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An army man’s wife, mother of two, a restaurateur with a social cause, a former beauty queen, an accomplished swimmer on the international platform and now a wannabe biker; 38 year-old Deepa Malik wears a multitude of hats and firmly refuses to let any conversation veer to sympathy that her wheelchair status often attracts. Suffering from Arachnoid cyst, Malik lost the use of her legs after three operations that rendered her a paraplegic in 1999.
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New Delhi: Disabled persons comprise six per cent of the population of Delhi.
* A year ago, the Delhi government had announced a social security stipend for disabled persons. To qualify, applicants need to be registered with the Special Employment Exchange, Ministry of Labour, for three years.
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Malaysia, PETALING JAYA: Now that she is wheelchair-bound, Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun understands the difficulties faced by disabled persons.

“I am now temporarily disabled. I came in mobility-transport assistance for the disabled.
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Jessie Kierbow was a strikingly low-maintenance baby. She was so good, in fact, that her parents were occasionally uneasy. “She never cried,” said Jessie’s mom, Lisa Kyler. “We couldn’t tell when she was sick, because she didn’t cry. And she was fascinated with the ceiling fan – she could stare at it for hours.”
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David Greenhalgh’s life changed with a limp in his mid-forties. After years of redundant therapy and misdiagnoses, a neurologist diagnosed him with Cervical Spondylosis. “I had an operation to stop things from getting worse. They cut away part of my spinal cord c4 to c7. When I came out of the hospital, I was trapped at home for months. After becoming disabled, my first idea was to compile a general database of disability resources but my hobbies were films and books. Eventually, I made the decision to compile a list of films that involved disabilities.
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David is not a dunce. In fact, according to the evaluations of several professionals he is rather intelligent. Yet he certainly has a problem, and shares his problem with millions of other children and adults.
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DESIGN FOR ALL From school to practice

1. Main objectives of the project

This project is to promote “Accessibility for all» within the framework of the built-up areas and of the public infrastructures.
It works on the principle that the persons in charge of ” Accessibility for all ” are in very first place the decision makers, local councillors for public spaces and promoters for built spaces, and Designers, town planners and architects, who apply the programs wanted by their decision makers.
The decision makers like the originators, in spite of a real goodwill, only have a very insufficient knowledge of the daily needs of the people in situation of handicap. Very often, they limit their interventions to the only respect of the national law and normative minima.
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Bedsores are also called pressure ulcers or pressure sores; due to the damage of skin area that caused by cut off the circulation of the body parts such as hips, buttocks, and heels. Majority of the people living of paralysis that stay one position on a bed or wheelchair for a long time start developed bedsore.

Although completely treatable if found early, without medical attention, bedsores can become life-threatening.
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COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
Situation of disabled people in the European Union: the European Action Plan 2008-2009
Brussels, 26.11.2007
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A few of disabled persons were asked what Independent Living meant to them and these were the varied responses received:
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A pressure ulcer is an area of skin that breaks down when you stay in one position for too long without shifting your weight. This often happens if you use a wheelchair or you are bedridden, even for a short period of time (for example, after surgery or an injury). The constant pressure against the skin reduces the blood supply to that area, and the affected tissue dies.
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The issue of mental illness needs to be brought to the centre stage.

Worldwide, there are believed to be around 450 million people suffering from mental or behavioural disorders. 14 per cent of all global disease burden is attributed to mental disorders. There is one psychiatrist for 10,000 people in high income countries and one for 2 million people in low income countries.
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Daily Nation – Nairobi, Kenya:

The physically and mentally challenged persons are quite diverse in degree and type of disability and ability to grapple with their environmental challenges.

They are also so scattered all over the country that it is difficult for them to come together to form a single national body to represent them.
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The justification that a web site is accessible because it “follows standards” contains a serious fallacy. Specifically, the assumption that standards support accessibility.

One root of current standard accessibility practice is conformance to the HTML or XHTML standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This is a fine practice, and certainly should be maintained. Using correct syntax and following a standardized method of communicating information is always a solid best practice. However, this should absolutely not be taken to mean that following these standards is the same as applying the principles of web accessibility.
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Sometimes when people first learn about Web accessibility they look for quick ways of improving the sites they build. This often leads to misuse or overuse of certain HTML features that are meant to aid accessibility, but when used wrongly have no effect and can actually have the opposite effect by making the page less accessible and less usable.
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Autism, a neurological-based developmental disability, affects an estimated one in 166 people, according to a 2004 study by the Centers for Disease Control Prevention. Both children and adults with Autism typically show difficulties in verbal and nonverbal communication, social interactions and leisure or play activities, according to the Autism Society of America. Autism affects individuals differently and to varying degrees.
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Question: A couple of years ago, a very close “young” family friend had a stroke and become immobilized. The high cost of her care depleted her family’s assets. They are now forced to sell their home and are quickly headed for the poorhouse. We don’t want this to happen to our family. What can we do to protect ourselves?
– K & R, Illinois

Answer: Most of us think it won’t happen to us or our families. However, according to “Beyond 50: A Report to the Nation on Independent Living and Disability,” a 2003 publication from AARP, there’s a 68 percent probability that people age 65 and older will become disabled in at least two activities of daily living or be cognitively impaired. And long-term-care needs are not a concern solely of seniors, but of any of us.
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Working for an employer that does not consider your welfare as a human being can outweigh the financial advantages of even the best salary package. Our needs as individuals dont simply evaporate because we are paid a good salary.
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Thirty years after Masters and Johnson suggested engaging patients physically rather than verbally could have therapeutic benefits, sex surrogacy remains a murky field.

Psychiatrists and other therapists are obligated by medical ethics not to have sex with their patients, but “surrogate partners” are supposed to — and that simple but loaded dichotomy goes to the heart of the little understood yet much maligned therapeutic practice of sex surrogacy.
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If you travel with a disability, handicap, physical limitation, mobility limitation, or developmental disability, have special needs, or use an electric wheelchair or handicap scooter, it’s a good idea to learn as much as you can to make disabled travel easier.

Or if you’re a mature traveler or senior who is a slow walker or just wants a slower pace, becoming more informed about disabled travel services and disability travel resources, will lessen the anxiety that often accompanies disabled travelers.

The following travel tips, resources and information for the disabled will help make trips, tours, holidays and vacations a lot easier for you, or for a child with a disability, whether short-term or long-term.
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The information or knowledge-based society is no longer a matter of the future, rather a very contemporary urge of the time. In almost all aspects of our life, we need information and knowledge to get our basic needs met, make decision, move around, participate in social, economic and cultural activities.
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For most of us, a visit to a doctor’s office for a medical check-up or for treatment of a medical problem is no big deal. We do what we are asked to do, whether it is to sit or lie on an examination table, stand on a scale or prepare for an X-ray or scan. There are those, however, who cannot conform to the medical equipment that requires patients to stand, climb, sit or lie because they are either elderly or disabled. This, according to research showing that elderly people or those with disabilities often do not go for the treatment they need.
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In time, the name Steven Hoskin may become as lodged in our memories as that of another man who shares his first name, and for similar, grim reasons. Stephen Lawrence is probably the most well-known victim of racially motivated murder. Hoskin, who had learning disabilities and was killed by three people last year, looks likely to be the first person that comes to mind when we think of hate crime against disabled people in the future.
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“Independent Living isn’t doing everything by yourself—it’s being in control of how things are done.”
—Independent living pioneer Judy Heumann, quoted by Ken Stein in text accompanying Stein’s photo exhibit of CIL’s history in Rasputin’s windows at 2401 Telegraph Ave.

Today it sounds like something from ancient history: a physically disabled person earning a university degree is relegated to living in a hospital.

But that’s what happened in 1962 to Ed Roberts, who was severely disabled from polio with virtually no functional movement and dependent on a respirator to breathe.
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Sometimes it’s sad to see people who can look at a job loss, a temporary income setback or a career change as a devastating event. In your life transitions sit back and look at how good you have it. For many of us we have the intellectual capability, use of our limbs and face pretty minor health challenges along the way through what I call our worklife mission. Step back, look at and appreciate those who may not have all that you do in your time of need.
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Three years ago, Christopher Rambadt was stabbed to death along the American River. He was 22 years old and homeless, an emotionally disturbed, developmentally delayed young man who had been a ward of the state until he was 18.

What would have happened if he had stayed in the state’s care an extra year?

Some who knew Rambadt believe it might have helped save his life.
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I and my husband once worked as nurse aides at the first apartment building in the nation built specifically for people in wheelchairs, namely Center Park, which shares the same initials as cerebral palsy, one of the world’s most common severe physical disabilities. There is a huge United Cerebral Palsy Residential Center in Seattle, Washington, USA, and many people with cerebral palsy live at Center Park as well. It’s right next door to the Lighthouse for the Blind, and some blind people live in Center Park as well.
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Whether you anticipate changes in your health status or that of a friend or relative, modifying a home to accommodate a disability could be a component of those changes. While you may have visions of drop cloths, plastic sheeting and drywall dust all over your home, don’t worry. Many home modifications need not involve noisy construction and costly contractors. There are many inexpensive ways to make your home more accessible.
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Developmental dyslexia is defined as an unexpected difficulty in reading in children and adults who otherwise possess the intelligence and motivation considered necessary for accurate and fluent reading and who also have had reasonable reading instruction. Although dyslexia was first described more than a century ago, only within the last two decades have neuroscientists been able to determine the neural systems influencing reading and reading disability through brain-imaging studies.
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According to a clinical study conducted at the REHAB in Basel, Switzerland, THC was effective in reducing spasticity in 25 patients with spinal cord injury. In three study phases patients received oral THC, rectal THC-hemisuccinate (THC-HS) and/or placebo, each for six weeks. Originally, it was planned to start with an open phase with oral THC followed by an open phase with rectal THC-HS and then a three-way crossover placebo-controlled phase with oral THC and rectal THC-HS. Due to logistical problems with the import of THC- HS Phase 2 had to be stopped after inclusion of seven patients. Phase 3 was changed to a parallel study with oral THC and placebo.
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BRYAN – Shonnie Moore of College Station, paralyzed in a July 2005 traffic accident, has had to learn how to eat, bathe and live all over again through physical therapy.
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Pasadena, CA (PRWEB) — The illumination of the human genome has opened the door to a vast range of medical therapies. The promise of drugs and interventions tuned to the individual patient’s genetics holds persuasive advantage over the one-size-fits-all generic remedies we count on today. Further progress in this booming field of molecular medicine, however, relies in part on continuing stem cell research using human embryos. Although the cells themselves are microscopic, their use in medical research has become one of the biggest current moral issues in society.
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Inch by inch, the world is waking up to the idea that people with disabilities are sexual beings. But the obvious question remains: How does someone who requires help performing tasks such as showering or getting in and out of bed manage masturbation or sex?
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The Associated Press

September 21, 2006

Swiss biotech firm Serono SA, which earlier Thursday agreed to sell a majority stake in the company to German drugmaker Merck KGaA for $13.31 billion, said its oral cladribine treatment for multiple sclerosis has received ‘fast-track’ status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

This designation covers patients with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis.

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Late last month, we regaled you with a story about Toyota’s advanced collision detection technology that uses sensory data to trigger an automatic slowdown in cars. Clearly, one of the research teams at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology is paying attention to what their countrymen in Toyota are doing — for they’ve just come up with a similar system in wheelchairs.
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Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has announced a new smart wheelchair that features a 360-degree camera system that is aware of its surroundings. The electric wheelchair can avoid collisions with objects and other people and has the ability to tell if the user needs medical assistance.
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Late last month, we regaled you with a story about Toyota’s advanced collision detection technology that uses sensory data to trigger an automatic slowdown in cars.
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