Saturday News

Contents of This Week: Saturday News ▶︎ March 5th / 2016

• Definition: Accessible Housing

Accessible housing refers to the construction or modification (such as through renovation or home modification) of housing to enable independent living for persons with disabilities. Accessibility is achieved through architectural design, but also by integrating accessibility features such as modified furniture, shelves and cupboards, or even electronic devices in the home. A longer definition comes from Wikipedia. 

• Video: Accessible Housing
• Accessible Housing
• Accessible Home Renovation
• Ramp
• How to Build A Home Access Ramp - Part One
• How to Build A Home Access Ramp - Part Two
• How to Build A Home Access Ramp - Part Three
• How to Build A Home Access Ramp - Part Four
• Kitchen
• Fair Housing Means Universal Design: With an Emphasis on Kitchens
• Kitchen Accessibility
• More Kitchen Accessibility Ideas
• Bathroom
• Bathroom
• How To Install A Wall Mount Bathroom Sink
• How to Make a Handicap Accessible Shower
• Hallways & Laundry Room & Living Room & Bathroom
• Wheelchair Accessible Home
• Stairways
• Harmar Pinnacle Premium Stairway Lift

• Headline Blog: Accessible Housing
• Practice Walking Without My Brace
• The Handicapped in America: The ADA Has Your Back
• Handicapped Bathrooms Are Badly Designed
• One Wedding and a Funeral

• Weekly Columnists
• Musing: What Does a Scientist Think of "Right Brain/Left Brain" Tests?
• Sunday Stroke Survival: Making the Inacessible Accessible
• Jester: Tech Support
• TED Talks - Mary Bassett: Why Your Doctor Should Care About Social Justice

• Eclectic Stuff on Wednesday
• Who'd Have Thought...?
• Good Hardware - Keeping Things Together for Years (One Hopes)
• A New Hand Evaluation for Stroke Survivors
• Pseudobulbar Affect
• Rick Mercer Report: Caviar & Future
• Laid-Back Admin: No Post This Week
• XKCD: Stargazing

• Future Topics in SSTattler

     Saturday News | Future Topic
     --------------+---------------------------------------------

     Apr/02/2016   | Mixed Transcortical Aphasia
     Mar/26/2016   | Environmental Enrichment (Neural)
     Mar/19/2016   | Anomic Aphasia
     Mar/12/2016   | Speech Repetition

Definition: Accessible Housing

Accessible Housing From Wikipedia,
      the free encyclopedia

Accessible housing refers to the construction or modification (such as through renovation or home modification) of housing to enable independent living for persons with disabilities. Accessibility is achieved through architectural design, but also by integrating accessibility features such as modified furniture, shelves and cupboards, or even electronic devices in the home.

Please click-it to be larger for the text+image... 

In Canada, FlexhousingTM is a concept that encourages homeowners to make renovations that modify their house over time to meet changing accessibility needs. The concept supports the goals of enabling "homeowners to occupy a dwelling for longer periods of time, perhaps over their entire lifetimes, while adapting to changing circumstances and meeting a wide range of needs"; Universal Housing in the United States and Lifetime Homes in the United Kingdom are similar concepts.

Video: Accessible Housing

SSTattler: Some of the options for you - many other options possible...

Contents:

• Accessible Housing 
• Ramp 
• Kitchen 
• Bathroom 
• Hallways & Laundry Room & Living Room & Bathroom 
• Stairways

Accessible Housing

Accessible Home Renovation

Published on Oct 1, 2012

T12 para Mark Schmitt, renovates his 1000 sq. foot cabin for accessibility. Loaded with great tips like, lower windows and counters, roll under kitchen sink, roll-in pantry, improved entries and much more.

Standard YouTube License @ EasyStand

Headline Blog: Accessible Housing

Definition: Blog (noun). Add new material to or regularly update to a blog. (≃1990s: blog shortening of weblog)

Practice Walking Without My Brace

Barb Polan
Barb's Recovery

Posted 8th June 2010

Yesterday in PT, my PT had me practice walking without my AFO (leg brace) to see how my ankle is coming along. She reminded me how weak my ankle was when I first started seeing her - it behaved then much like it had the morning of the stroke, when it just kept rolling over each time I put my weight on it. Yesterday, however, I could walk 10 feet without too much trouble, but with her guarding my ankle as my weight went on it. I practiced walking the 10 feet a half dozen times back and forth, pulling my leg up from the hip higher than I normally would so that it was easier to plant my foot straight forward - its natural inclination was to turn toe in and that was too risky for my ankle, so I would have to straighten it out when it did that. Each step I take, I try to keep my toes pointed "toward twelve o'clock," as my PT says.

In OT, we discussed what it would take for me to be able to shower by myself - the topic came up because I had told my PT about my dip in the Charles and her immediate response was,"So did you go home immediately and shower?" and my response was,"No, I don't shower by myself yet," to which she responded that I should talk to my OT about the logistics of that. We went through the process and my OT came up with a solution or two for each dilemma I perceived:how to get shampoo out of the bottle, where to keep my brace, shoes and cane so that they are dry at the end of the shower when I have to use them to walk out of the shower, where to keep the towels so that they are both dry and accessible, how to stand on a wet shower floor, how to shave both my legs and underarms, how to get into and out of the shower, all details that an able-bodied person deals with without a thought, another ability taken for granted. Of course, the whole showering adventure becomes much simpler once I'm no longer wearing the brace.

See the original article:

Practice Walking Without My Brace

in

Barb's Recovery

The Handicapped in America: The ADA Has Your Back

Joyce Hoffman
The Tales of a Stroke Patient

Aug 12, 2013

My mother-in-law used to always have a lawsuit going on. But, alas, they were frivolous suits, mostly slips and falls in the market, on someone else's sidewalk, or falls in the street, all when barriers were in her way, where she just bruised herself almost every time. And she wasn't handicapped. She was clumsy. In all that time, around 30 years, I thought about when would be the next time for her, and I didn't give one thought, not a single one, to handicapped people who really had to be worried about barriers.

I am now handicapped from the stroke, but the government protects you--sort of. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law July 26, 1990 by George H. W. Bush, so don't say Bush was a bad president. Oh. My bad. That was his son.

The ADA was later amended with changes on January 1, 2009. The ADA is really a civil rights law that prohibits, in most cases, discrimination based on disability. Disability, as defined by the ADA, is "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity." Excluded are those with vision impairment, fixable by lenses, and drug users because those conditions can be repaired. (Are you listening, drug users? There's hope for you yet, but not through the ADA).

Look at some of the lawsuits filed recently in the past and the winners from them:

Barden v. The City of Sacramento
The City of Sacramento failed to bring its sidewalks into compliance with the ADA. Certain factors were resolved in Federal Court. One issue, whether sidewalks were covered by the ADA, was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals  of Appeals, which ruled that sidewalks were a "program" under ADA and must be made accessible to persons with disabilities. The ruling was later appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case, letting stand the ruling of the 9th Circuit Court.
Winner: Barden

Handicapped Bathrooms Are Badly Designed

Rebecca Dutton
Home After a Stroke

August 3, 2015

Handicapped bathrooms in hotels I have used since my stroke are poorly designed.  The most common error I have seen is placing the towel rack on a wall ten feet away from the tub across the extra large bathroom.  It may be dangerous for a companion to turn his or her back on a disabled person and walk away to retrieve a towel.  I solved this problem by dragging the luggage rack into the bathroom.  I placed my towel and bathrobe on the rack where I could reach them while sitting on my folding shower stool.  An inexpensive solution is to place hooks near the bathtub at wheelchair height.

I ran into 2 unique problems in one hotel handicapped bathroom.

1)  The shower curtain was so short and hung so far away from the tub that I could look down and see a four inch wide strip of the bathroom floor.  A wet floor is a Fall Hazard.  Before I got in the tub I did my best to soak up the water by putting a bath towel on the floor.  An inexpensive solution is to purchase longer shower curtains that can be tucked inside the bathtub.

One Wedding and a Funeral

Marcelle Greene
Up Stroke

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

I took two significant trips this year – one to England to attend a funeral, and the second to the East Coast to be in a wedding. Leaving town means missing my four weekly therapy sessions, which keep my physical discomfort to a minimum; so I’ve developed a strategy for dealing with muscle stiffness while traveling.

Following my own advice (Travel Tips for Survivors), I stayed in comfortable, accessible accommodations for multiple nights, and identified a local gym. Using a gym worked out the kinks from the plane ride and kept my energy level steady. I’ve learned from experience that surrendering to the notion that I need to rest for a couple days after a long plane ride simply allows my muscles to stiffen and lethargy to overcome me.

From the gym window in Kent County, England, I watched a horse frolicking in a green, green field. At the gym in Charlotte, North Carolina, my workout was interrupted by a fire drill; while we waited in the parking lot for the “all-clear,” my friend and her fiancé practiced their first dance, giving me a privileged first peek.

I can paddle a boat, canoe?

After the wedding my husband and I drove to Canada for a week in a cottage by a lake. I mustered my courage and got into a paddle boat, and an inner tube being towed behind a pontoon. But the triumph was climbing into a canoe and paddling – better on the left than the right, but enough for my husband to feel the contribution.

See the original article:

One Wedding and a Funeral

in

Up Stroke

Weekly Columnists

Definition: Columnist |ˈkäləmnist| (noun). A blogger or a journalist contributing regularly to a blog or newspaper

Musing:What Does a Scientist Think of "Right Brain/Left Brain" Tests?

Dean Reinke
Deans' Stroke Musing

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Hopefully your doctor doesn't fall into this left brain/right brain crap. Even if Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor believes in it wholeheartedly. What does a scientist think of "right brain/left brain" tests?

Millions of Facebook users have done the online tests.

Maybe you've noticed the recent spate of "brain tests" making the rounds online.

There are different versions - several have been shared hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook - but most of them take the form of a quiz which purports to show how "left-brained" or "right-brained" you are. The idea is that the left side of the brain is associated more with logic and rationality and the right side controls creativity and emotion. So is there any evidence that the two sides of the brain correspond to those particular characteristics?

"It is certainly the case that some people have more methodical, logical cognitive styles, and others more uninhibited, spontaneous styles," says Jeffrey Anderson, a brain researcher at the University of Utah. "This has nothing to do on any level with the different functions of the [brain's] left and right hemisphere."

Sunday Stroke Survival: Making the Inacessible Accessible

Jo Murphey
The Murphey Saga

Sunday, February 28, 2016

As a physically disabled person, safe accessibility is of paramount importance. Having clear, level walkways makes sense right? Having accessibility in the home you lived in before your stroke is another issue entirely. Not everyone can afford to buy a more accessible house. Most of us just have to make do.

I'll use my current home, the house I'm moving to and our future home as examples.

My current home- when I came home from the rehab hospital, I had a few aids that I didn't have before like a portable toilet, bath chair, a hemi walker, and a wheelchair. That's just some very basic equipment. My house was built in 1959. It was only partially accessible before we bought it. I was technically disabled by my spine injury and bionic joints prior to its purchase. I knew my limitations like a flight of steps. Yes, I could climb stairs, but at times it was a scary proposition. The idea of climbing them several times a day made it a hardship issue. So a single story house was searched for and found. The house is not without steps though. There are two small steps and a door jamb to get into the front door. There was also a six-inch step down into the back room we slated as my office. This wasn't a deal breaker at the time. Of course, only the front and back doors were 36" wide.

Jump ahead almost seventeen years. My husband's medical condition worsens to where he cannot walk and I have a stroke. Those little steps posed a problem and ramps had to be built. My lower kitchen cabinets become impossible to see and reach inside. The top shelves in my upper cabinets also become inaccessible because I have to step up on a stool to reach them. Sliding and drop down baskets had to be installed to make them usable and handicapped friendly. In fact, my house was going through an expansion/renovation at the time of my stroke was a good thing. Although most of the money saving DIY projects had to be outsourced because I was physically unable to do them. Insulation and dry wall hanging are best left to someone with good balance and two hands. Especially ceilings. :o Not that I didn't think about it.

Jester: Tech Support

Jackie Poff
Stroke Survivors Tattler

A woman wrote to tech support, and their reply is a stroke of genius. This young woman is no different from the rest of us, both family happiness and heartbreak are familiar to her. She is simply looking for an answer to her questions. How do you maintain a relationship? How do you bring back the excitement of the first date. She wrote a letter to the tech support to find her answers. She sent the letter as a joke and only remembered about it when she suddenly received an email notification with a response.
           
Dear Tech Support,

      Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slowdown in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.
             
In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as: Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as: NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1.
             
Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and House Cleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.  What can I do?
             
Signed, Desperate


Dear Desperate,

      First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Please enter command: I thought you loved me.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please, do not attempt to re-install the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend: Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck!’

TED Talks - Mary Bassett: Why Your Doctor Should Care About Social Justice

TED.com

Filmed November 2015

In Zimbabwe in the 1980s, Mary Bassett witnessed the AIDS epidemic firsthand, and she helped set up a clinic to treat and educate local people about the deadly virus. But looking back, she regrets not sounding the alarm for the real problem: the structural inequities embedded in the world's political and economic organizations, inequities that make marginalized people more vulnerable. These same structural problems exist in the United States today, and as New York City's Health Commissioner, Bassett is using every chance she has to rally support for health equity and speak out against racism. "We don't have to have all the answers to call for change," she says. "We just need courage."


Filmed February 2005 at TED2005

Eclectic Stuff on Wednesday

Definition: Eclectic (noun). A person who derives ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources

Who'd Have Thought...?

Wednesday, 24 February 2016

'Mr Sinfield, Bethany will not walk again. She probably will not talk and will always be fed via a feeding tube in her stomach.'

My dad even had to double check this prognosis with my speech therapist, 'will she really never be able to talk or eat again?'

'It's extremely unlikely. I'm sorry.'

I sometimes don't realise just how far I've come since September 2012 when that initial prognosis was made. Looking back it both scares and amazes me. To tell the truth, it scares me to think that I had that said about me, that I could have just stayed completely powerless, totally paralysed with only my eyes to communicate. Not knowing then how different my life would be if I'd remained locked-in.

It amazes me, of course it does. Firstly I survived. To put it bluntly, it was thought I would die that night in A&E. Secondly I pushed through, what I can only describe, as the most devastating, toughest, emotional experience in my life. Something I never thought I would have to go through, let alone go through at the tender age of 17.

And thirdly, I can walk. I can talk. I can eat normal food.

Two years after my stroke I decided to get my first tattoo. I had recently turned 18 and had always wanted to get one. So I got a quote on my upper back, 'Strength grows from weakness'. My dad comments that is very poignant. That quote made me realise that it's ok to be weak. The only way to become strong is by being weak.

Then I got a little butterfly. I had it in black as a symbol of the dark times that I've been in but also, the wings and the simple fact that they fly, symbolises my freedom. Freedom from locked-in syndrome, freedom from 10 months in hospital. Freedom from the darker times.

I'm planning my next one as I type; a hummingbird. Again the wings symbolise my freedom. The beauty of a hummingbird symbolises the person I am now beginning to transform into. As I've previously written, this year my confidence is coming back to me, my old friend finally returning. To me, that is beautiful. That is what I've since desired the most.

See the original article:

Who'd Have Thought...?

in

Beth's Story

Good Hardware - Keeping Things Together for Years (One Hopes)

Jeff Porter
Stroke of Faith

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Photo from A.M.D. via Flickr

I'm a hardware fan. Hammers, chisels, screwdrivers - you name it. Good hardware will last a lifetime. And now, there's an interesting study about people hardware - in this case, stents that are devoted to stroke prevention.

Like I said, good hardware can last a long time. So this research indicates that a decade later, stents durable for stroke prevention:

"... at 10 years patients who underwent stenting or endarterectomy to treat severe carotid stenosis were no more likely to have a stroke than same age healthy patients. 

Those findings emerged from the long term follow-up of study of CREST, initial results of which were reported in 2010 and which paved the way for FDA approval of Abbott Vascular's Acculink carotid stent. Thomas G. Brott, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville reported the 10-year results at the International Stroke Conference here; the results were simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

I chose some different hardware almost nine years ago, with a device to close the hole between my two upper heart chambers. Sort of the opposite of a stent. The stent keeps something open. Mine was designed to plug something closed. Similar material, different purpose. So 10 years as mentioned in this research? I'm hoping for several times that.

See the original article:

Good Hardware - Keeping Things Together for Years
(One Hopes)

in

Stroke of Faith

A New Hand Evaluation for Stroke Survivors

Rebecca Dutton
Home After a Stroke

February 25, 2016

Van Lew and associates (1) studied the reliability of a hand evaluation called Functional Upper Extremity Levels (FUEL).

What They Got Right

To prove the efficacy of treatment approaches, researchers need tests that are sensitive enough to detect both emerging movement and small improvements.  Hand tests traditionally begin by asking clients to reach out, pick up an object sitting on a table, and release the object by placing it back on the table.  Many stroke survivors cannot do this.  The FUEL provides sensitivity by describing 3 levels of skill below the starting level of traditional tests.

      Level 1 = Dependent Stabilizer.  The sound hand places the affected hand on an object.  The weight of the hand stabilizes the object so the sound can manipulate the object.  Level 2 = Independent Stabilizer.  The affected hand places itself on the object (e.g. hand holding down wad of toilet paper so other hand can tear paper).  Level 3 = Gross Assist.  Affected hand holds an object with a gross grasp.  No functional release is present.

What They Missed

Pseudobulbar Affect

Dr. Amy Elder
My Cerebellar Stroke Recover

February 26, 2016

Hi everyone!  I needed to come back to the blog and write a post about this because I’ve been talking a lot about it and trying to explain it to my hubby in the last few days.  It’s oh so important and can quite frankly ruin relationships. And as I’ve been reading about it lately it seems it’s way under diagnosed and most families sweep it under the rug and don’t try to understand it. Mine sure as hell didn’t. My family was only concerned with THEIR feelings and how this affected THEM.  Not at all how this terrible, devastating , tragic, horrible thing affected ME and my life.

It’s called Pseudobulbar Affect or PBA for short. It’s when you have episodes of uncontrollable crying or laughing or anger or just saying bizarre things. It’s an emotional disconnect when what shows on your face or how you emote or what you say is completely opposite of what’s in your head. It might be one of the weirdest things that I’ve experienced after the stroke. At times my words didn’t at all match what was in my head. A lot of people have it after a stroke, not everyone.  Five years later and I’m still very much struggling with it. It’s utterly impossible for a normal person to understand this, it’s so very weird. The most you can do is provide reading materials to people and hope that they read it and try to understand, as my husband is trying.

For the first year or two after the stroke, it was unbelievably severe and intense that I literally couldn’t speak without bursting into tears. I could be speaking about a TV show and just start sobbing. Now, it’s mostly the episodes of intense anger that I’m dealing with. Anger sometimes over stupid little things that wouldn’t at all bother someone else.  Because of this, I tend to socially isolate myself, remove all negativity and drama from my life and I choose only to be around a select few people that make me feel good. This is because I’m terrified of how I will react.

PBA is uncontrollable. It’s totally beyond your control. Therapy can give you coping mechanisms but talking about it ad nauseum won’t make it go away, nor will medicine. You literally cannot control your emotions.

Here’s some good reading material  that I’ve found on it in the last few days….

• PBA 1
• PBA 2
• PBA 3

Written by Mrs. Patrick Elder

See the original article:

Pseudobulbar Affect

in

My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery

Rick Mercer Report: Caviar & Future

www.rickmercer.com

Rick and Acadian Caviar

Published on Jan 13, 2016

Rick tours the facilities at Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar in Carters Point, NB.


Standard YouTube License @ Rick Mercer Report

The News Industry of the Future

Published on Feb 10, 2016

Imagine the possibilities.


Standard YouTube License @ Rick Mercer Report

Laid-Back Admin: No Post This Week