From BBC News:


Exeter's Judith Hamer (pictured) is one of Great Britain's most promising young wheelchair basketball players.

Alongside holding down a job and training five days a week, the 19-year-old finds time to act as a role model for other disabled youngsters, encouraging them to get involved with Paralympic sports.

Hamer was born with one leg significantly longer than the other and endured many operations to correct the problem before deciding to have her right limb amputated in 2006.

Fast-forward four years and Hamer is now part of the GB wheelchair basketball squad, whilst also using her experiences to a positive effect - persuading others in her position that playing sport to a highly competitive standard is possible.

Hamer said: "I was really lucky that Paralympics GB saw me and wanted me to help, get involved and encourage new people to join in with sports.

"Sport can be a really great thing for a lot of people - it opens a lot of doors.

"I was only playing for two years before I joined the GB squad.

"2012 will be the biggest thing I ever do, and I won't be able to play at a home Paralympics ever again."

In July, Hamer was part of the GB squad that finished sixth at the Wheelchair Basketball World Championships, and is now hoping to build on that experience in the run up to the London Paralympics:

"We're aiming higher than that now," she said.

"We're seeing this cycle as a development cycle, to improve our ranking at 2012, so now our target is third or fourth, so that's a big step up from eighth at the Beijing Olympics.

She added: "All the major tournaments I've been to have been on home soil, so I'm used to playing in front of a home crowd, and it's definitely an advantage."

At club level, Hamer has recently joined Aylesbury-based Super League club, The Aces, where with the help of head coach Haj Bhania she is hoping to increase her ability on the court even further.

She said: "I was playing in division two for the past two years and that was really good for me to get used to playing and learn how to play, but now I have to move to a higher division to push myself further."

From Erictric:


Here’s some interesting information with regard to Apple’s iPod Touch 4G, due to be released in the middle of next week. According to Apple’s website, it would appear as if the iPod Touch 4G will be equipped with vibrating functionality.

Specifically, the website notes that when one user initiates a FaceTime call, the recipient of the invitation will receive a text notice and will also receive a “vibrating alert”.
Apple has always intended FaceTime to be used by the deaf community:


On June 7, 2010 Apple announced FaceTime, a new application for the newly announced iPhone 4 that will let iPhone 4 owners chat with one another using video chat. It requires that both iPhone 4 users are on a WiFi network and won't run over 3G just yet. However, Apple did point out some of its compelling uses, such as allowing two deaf people to communicate using sign language. The service can use either the iPhone 4's forward facing camera, or its 5 megapixel rear one.

From the National Center for Law and Economic Justice:


State public benefits agencies increasingly rely on their website as a means of providing information to the public, and as a means of applying for Medicaid, Food Stamps, and cash assistance.

Cary LaCheen’s new report, discussing the findings from web accessibility research of state and some local public benefits agency web sites in California, Florida, Michigan, New York, and Texas, describes a host of problems that make it difficult or impossible for people with disabilities to apply for benefits online, request an application, search the website, or contact the agency by email, and for anyone to find basic information on how to apply for benefits.

The research was conducted for NCLEJ by students in the Legal Skills in a Social Context program at Northeastern University School of Law. The accessibility problems found violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and state web accessibility laws and policies.

NCLEJ, which believes the problems identified by the research are likely to exist in other states, has called upon the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Nutrition Service at USDA to require the states included in the study to fix the problems identified, to issue guidance to states on web accessibility, to convene an interagency workgroup to develop materials to assist states, and to provide technical assistance to state agencies on the issue.

As the federal government and states prepare to implement health care reform, and millions of additional people become eligible for Medicaid, it is critical that state public benefits agency websites are accessible to people with disabilities and usable by everyone, so eligible individuals have ready access to information on the Medicaid program and the application process.

Click here for the report: The Closed Digital Door: State Public Benefits Agencies' Failure to Make Websites Accessible to People with Disabilities and Usable for Everyone.

From ABC News. She is pictured at the Emmys with one of the producers of the HBO biopic about her.



Temple Grandin stole the spotlight at the Emmys, standing up right in the middle of the awards show again and again, smiling far wider than the Hollywood stars beside her.

Temple is not a movie star, but an HBO biopic about her life has thrust her into the spotlight.

Long before her life made it to the small screen, Temple became an inspiration to so many. She is a renowned scientist, credited with single-handedly improving the lives of cattle. She's also autistic.

"She was one of the first people to challenge these completely absurd and very accepted theories of autism. Autism was meant to be the product of a frigid mother," said actress Claire Danes.

Danes portrays Temple in the HBO film, "Temple Grandin."

Temple was born in 1947 in Boston, Massachusetts. At just three years old, doctors diagnosed her with autism. Her mother, like so many parents at the time, had no idea why her daughter wasn't talking, wasn't smiling and wasn't hugging.

Doctors told Temple's mom, Eustacia Cutler, that a lack of love might be the reason for her daughter's behavior. Doctors said that there must have been a lack of bonding with the mother, that she hadn't given Temple affection when she most needed it.

Temple's mother knew that wasn't true. She refused to give up.

She took her daughter to a neurologist, a speech therapist and later, a private school. Her mother staged an intervention for her child that was unheard of at the time, a move that Temple said changed everything.

"It's absolutely awful mothers went through all that pain. They were blamed for something they didn't cause," Temple said. "You know, autism is a neurological disorder of the brain. It varies from someone who is non-verbal all the way to the geniuses of Silicon Valley. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of early intervention education."

As she grew older, Temple's family would recognize she had a remarkable mind able to catalog images, fixate on moving objects to pick apart how they work.

Then came the summer that changed her life. Temple was 16 years old when her family sent her to visit her aunt's ranch out west in Arizona.

She was able to see in the animals at the ranch what most of us could not. Temple noticed little things, like how a horse's ears moved in the direction they were looking. That scene came to life in the HBO film.

"I love that scene with the horse ears. One of the things that helped me in my work with animals is I'm a visual thinker," Temple said. "The movie did a fantastic job in showing how my mind works visually. My mind is like Google for images."

Temple and those around her treated her unique mind as a gift. At Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire, she graduated with honors. She went on to get a Masters and a Doctorate degree in Animal Science.

Temple has authored several books, becoming a champion for the children who have followed her path and the animals she befriended along the way.

One of her books, "Animals in Translation," argues that both autistic people and animals are hypersensitive, a theory that began back on that ranch so many years ago.

Temple's ability to understand animals' feelings helped her create animal welfare guidelines that have become a standard in the meatpacking industry.

And all these years later, after the movie won top honors, Temple bursting with joy hugged the producer. This from the little girl who once didn't hug.

"Oh, absolutely, I was hugging everyone that night," Temple said.

As she stood at the podium, she had a message for that determined mother who is still cheering her on.

"Stand up, ma," Temple said.

From Presbyterian USA. Here's the Temple University Disability Studies blog remembrance of Rev. Rice.


The Rev. Howard Leland Rice, former moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly and San Francisco Theological Seminary chaplain and professor of ministry from 1968-97, died Aug. 8 in Claremont, Calif., at the age of 78. He was one of the earliest practitioners of spiritual disciplines and formation that led to the current renewal of those practices in the church.

Rice was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis prior to his appointment at SFTS — he arrived at the seminary the same year as this reporter arrived as a student — and spent his time on the San Anselmo campus either on crutches or confined to a wheelchair. After Rice’s retirement, his diagnosis was changed from MS to spinal cord damage. Last spring he battled a stubborn bone infection for weeks, resulting in his decision to accept hospice care. He passed away peacefully surrounded by his family.

A memorial service will take place Aug. 20 at Claremont Presbyterian Church.

"Howard had a huge heart for people, for ministry, and for the church that he served so long and well," said Elizabeth Liebert, SFTS dean and professor of spiritual life. "Always standing with the underdog, he was persistent to the point of stubbornness in defending them. He is beloved by hundreds of students, pastors and church folk, whose hopes and struggles he held dear. We mourn the loss of mentor, colleague, spiritual adviser, friend and consummate pastor."

In the early 1970s, when one of his students gave him a copy of Morton T. Kelsey's The Other Side of Silence, Rice became a tireless advocate of feeding the soul as well as the mind, and recruited other pastors and scholars in the Bay Area to help him lead spiritual retreats for local pastors.

For the next 20 years Rice helped Presbyterians and other Protestants discover spirituality within the Protestant-Reformed tradition. During his moderatorial year — 1979-1980 — he organized three spirituality retreats throughout the country and encouraged each presbytery to send one participant.

Rice was instrumental in "Companions on the Inner Way," a retreat/conference program that has served hundreds of pastors and lay persons. He played a significant role in developing SFTS’s pioneering program in spirituality, which led to the creation of the Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction and the Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Formation programs.

In 1991, Rice published the landmark book, Reformed Spirituality: An Introduction to Believers, which continues to be widely studied in seminaries throughout the United States.

To honor his retirement from SFTS in 1997, Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey of California presented a tribute to Rice before the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2007, SFTS trustee and alumna the Rev. Jackie Leonard, made a first gift to the seminary toward endowing the Rice Family Chair in Christian Spirituality.

Rice graduated from Carroll College in 1953 and from McCormick Theological Seminary in 1956. Ordained by Winnebago Presbyery, he served pastorates in Minneapolis and Chicago before going to SFTS.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy, and a daughter, Amanda. A second daughter, Wendy Rice Dreitcer, died in 2004 of a brain tumor.

From The Guardian in the UK:

Scientists have made a breakthrough in understanding why older women become less fertile, suffer a miscarriage or have a baby with Down's syndrome.

The discovery could ultimately lead to treatments that would increase the chances of a successful pregnancy for growing numbers of would-be mothers in their late 30s and early 40s.

Researchers led by Dr Mary Herbert, an expert in reproductive biology at Newcastle University's Institute for Ageing and Health, have identified why some older women produce abnormal eggs, according to findings published in the journal Current Biology.

It has been known for a long time that would-be mothers who are nearing the end of their fertility are at higher risk than usual of having eggs that are affected by chromosomal abnormalities, but the underlying cause has been unclear.

The new study has identified problems arising from a woman's declining stock of proteins called Cohesins, which act as binding agents to hold chromosomes together by keeping them inside a ring. They are vital to ensure that chromosomes split evenly when cells divide.

Women's supplies of Cohesins fall as they age, Herbert and her colleagues discovered. Tests on eggs taken from both young and old mice indicated that the amount of Cohesins in women's bodies declines after their mid-30s.

When that happens it means that chromosomes are less tightly held together and they are therefore more likely to result in defective eggs, which can cause problems such as miscarriage and Down's syndrome.

Every cell in the human body, apart from eggs and sperm, contains two copies of each of the body's 23 chromosomes. Sperm and eggs must lose one copy each as they prepare for fertilisation. That process involves a complicated form of cell division.

This problem is compounded with eggs, because the attachments that hold chromosomes together have to be maintained by Cohesins until the egg divides just before ovulation.

When Herbert's team studied chromosomes during division in the egg, they found that the lower levels of Cohesin in eggs in older females led to some chromosomes becoming trapped and unable to divide properly.

"Reproductive fitness in women declines dramatically from the mid-30s onwards. Our findings point to Cohesin being a major culprit in this", said Herbert. More work was needed to understand why Cohesin declines over women's reproductive years, and such knowledge could lead to ways being developed to stop that loss from occurring.

Dr Peter Bowen-Simpkins, the medical director of the London Women's Clinic network of private fertility clinics and spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the study was "very exciting" and could lead to real improvements in older women's chances of having children.

"This breakthrough could mean the difference between success and failure – them having a baby or not – for the fast-growing number of women who are trying to conceive after their late 30s," he added.

From BBC News:


The first specialist college for young people with Asperger syndrome in Wales has opened its doors.

Priory Coleg Wales (pictured) in Pontypool, Torfaen, will cater for students aged between 16 and 25.

Its courses aim to boost pupils' independence and improve their chances of getting a job and enjoying a better quality of life.

Some places at the college will be funded by the assembly government, social services and the NHS.

Ten students begin day courses this year, with plans for 50 or 60 in the future.

While the students will initially be from south Wales, it is hoped the co-educational college will have a residential capacity from September 2011, when it will be able to take youngsters from farther afield.

Priory Coleg Wales is in the grounds of Coleg Gwent, the largest further education college in Wales.

Its launch follows a report by the assembly government in May 2009 which concluded 58% of schools did not feel there was adequate further education provision for young people on the autism spectrum in Wales.

Priory Coleg Wales principal Simon Coles said: "It's the first specialist provider for young people with Asperger syndrome in Wales.

"Many of these students will have found mainstream school very difficult, will have been out of education for some time or may have mental health problems as a result.

"These are young men and women who do not understand the world and the world does not understand them - they may spend a lot of time in their bedrooms on the computer, or under the duvet.

"We hope to be able to give them the social skills, understanding and independence needed to function in the world."

All students will have access to the standard Coleg Gwent curriculum, including more than 150 academic and vocational courses, A-levels and GCSEs.

The philosophy of the college is to provide as many learning opportunities within mainstream educational settings as possible.

Students will also receive counselling, therapy and help with tackling everyday tasks.

It has been welcomed by the National Autistic Society Cymru, which in 2007 called for better support and services for young people during transition between school, higher education, training and employment.

National co-ordinator Shirley Parsley said: "We hope it will go some way towards providing much needed person-centred support for young people with Asperger syndrome locally.

Work-based learning

"People with Asperger syndrome can have average or above average intelligence, fewer problems with speech, but may still have difficulties with understanding and processing language.

"Because of this, pupils with the condition will often have specific support requirements, such as social skills training, or help with essential life skills.

"All too often, this type of low-level support is not available, which can prevent pupils with Asperger syndrome from reaching their academic potential.

"Parents are always telling us that this is down to a lack of awareness, so we hope the Priory Coleg Wales will become a good practice example for both mainstream and specialist colleges in Wales."

Pupils will benefit from work-based learning and work experience to help with transition and preparation for further study or employment.

The group already has similar institutions in Swindon, Wiltshire, and Frome, Somerset.

From The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio:


Today she is a successful central Ohio entrepreneur, having already created and sold an information technology company before starting a new firm that focuses on helping companies hire top-notch talent.

In the 1970s, Janis Mitchell's (pictured) school placed her into a class for students with mental disabilities after her dyslexia was diagnosed in the first grade. "They thought that I was lazy and stupid," she said.

The president and CEO of Precise Resource in Westerville, Ohio, is now pushing for new legislation, introduced by a bipartisan pair of state lawmakers, that would better define dyslexia. It also would create a pilot program in three Ohio school districts designed to screen early for the disability and get students needed help.

An estimated 8 to 15 percent of the population has dyslexia, a language-based disability that causes difficulties with reading, writing and pronouncing words.

"We've got some work to do both to identify as well as teach folks how to deal with it," said Rep. Ted Celeste, D-Grandview Heights. "In particular, to do that in a way that will help them read and learn so they are not feeling stigmatized."

Celeste is co-sponsoring the bill with House Minority Leader William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, who has been heavily involved with the Masonic Order's dyslexia learning center in Cleveland.

"Dyslexia causes a child to have reading problems, and those problems are not endemic in any way to intellectual capacity," Batchelder said.

"It's unfortunate that some schools don't recognize what these problems are. We have found that by working with schools, when they get the message, they do make an effort to identify these young people."

Screening and additional tutoring needed to help students with dyslexia is not cheap, Batchelder said, noting the Masonic Order spends about $5,000 per child. But bill supporters say the long-term savings would outweigh the upfront costs.

The goal of the pilot projects would be to evaluate the effectiveness of early reading assistance and determine whether they can reduce future special-education costs.

Mitchell said her mother, a teacher herself, fought to keep her out of the mentally disabled classroom. She had extra tutoring and assistance all through school and into college.

"If you can teach them the proper way to read before fourth grade, you can stop all that extra tutoring," she said.

"If by fourth grade they haven't screened that, that's when we get into the heavy cost in Ohio schools that adds up way beyond the $5,000."

From Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center:


Matt Roloff will speak at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center Sunday, September 26, at 1 p.m.

Roloff, patriarch of the Roloff Family on TLC's reality series Little People, Big World, discusses his advocacy for the rights of little people.

In 1999, Matt wrote and published Against Tall Odds, which chronicles his business and professional success in the face of enormous medical and social adversity.

He is the former president of Little People of America (LPA) - a social and advocacy group for little people.

Q&A session will follow the presentation. Admission is $20 for Non-Members (includes Admission) and $10 for Members.

The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is a project of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois. This new world-class museum is dedicated to preserving the memories of those lost in the Holocaust and teaching current generations about the need to fight hatred, indifference and genocide in today’s world.

From The Irish Times:


A succinct description of what a reader might expect from this unusual memoir is perhaps best provided by the author herself when she notes that she emptied her life to the extent that she made of it a cell. “I haven’t made a charming minimalist environment for the contemplation of the good, I have fixed up a metal cave, I think I did it with drink first and with a good disinfecting blast of high-pressure shame after that. Then I went blind.”

Candia McWilliam (pictured) was born in Edinburgh in 1955. Her father was an architectural writer and academic who worked for the National Trust for Scotland. “Painstaking effortlessness, curiosa felicitas , was my father’s apparently idling, actually supercharged, gear. There may have been something irresistible to him about my mother’s lavish appearance and her extremer way. But it was also, time showed, at some level repulsive. The quick term for this is, I suppose, a fatal attraction.”

Her mother killed herself when Candia was nine. The event, like much in this disturbing, irritating and often wonderful book is treated in the brittlest of tones. “I will now try to remake my mother’s last day during which she took me to the Nubian goat farm at Cammo to choose a pointer puppy, a dog that must have been a sop to me, or perhaps to herself, like the drugged meat burglars are said to throw for guard dogs.”

From boarding school McWilliam went on to Cambridge, and spent the years after doing some journalism and working at Vogue . In 1981 she married Quentin Wallop, 10th earl of Portsmouth. They had two children before the marriage ended. A second marriage, to an Oxford don named Fram Dinshaw, took place in 1986, and in 1988 McWilliam published her first novel, A Case of Knives. The couple had a son before splitting in 1996, a break initiated by McWilliam – then deep in the throes of alcoholism – and an act that still haunts her. Dinshaw looms distressingly large in the book.

She got sober, though by the time she began this memoir she had been suffering from writer’s block for some years. She had published a collection of stories in 1997; her last novel was published in 1994. It was the blindness – or the urge to tell of it – that allowed her to break through the block. The problems began in 2006. Her eyes and vision were fine, but she had been struck with blepharospasm, a rare neurological disorder that made it virtually impossible for her to open her eyes.

Hers was never going to be a memoir treacly with redemption: “I haven’t yet met another ‘functionally blind’ person, as I feel that attending Alcoholics Anonymous is already a great enough adventure in fellow feeling, and I can’t face more.” Yet she has written a book that is painfully, sometimes cringingly, revealing. There were moments I admired her honesty – the willingness to speak frankly of loneliness and regret – but there were as many moments when, like Dinshaw (who, according to McWilliam, is often bored or exasperated by her oft-professed self-loathing), I just felt fed up with yet another passage insisting on how fat, ugly and useless she is.

The abuse is not confined to the self-estranging period of her blindness – during which she experiences herself as “a monstrous dowager with Tourettian facial tics and the creep-and-lurch gait of a not sufficiently surreptitious drunk”. It is, rather, a net cast back over her entire life. McWilliam was a beauty, and her novels had won awards. But she saw herself during those younger years as a person of “putrid, tarty, fat, pretentious artifice”.

The repetition of such admissions makes the book an uncomfortable read. For this memoir is not a presentation of past afflictions overcome. It often reads instead like excerpts from a sharply written but private journal in which “issues” are being worked through on the page, the text we hold in our hands an enactment of the trouble its author is describing: a tendency towards public and private self-ridicule. I don’t think I’ve read another memoir at once so naked and so meticulously – and often beautifully – crafted.

McWilliam is often at her best when writing about people she doesn’t know well (the self-involvement, and thus self-abasement, is here non-existent): the shaman who treats her, the women with whom she shares hospital rooms. Her description of bodily sensations – a grand-mal seizure, a broken leg, the packing of seaweed in a putrid wound – are impressive. The Scottish island of Colonsay, her adopted home, is rendered with loving exactitude. She describes her blindness with chill precision. Not being able to read is an incalculable loss, but she notes that nothing “that insists upon concentration, as this limitation does, is all bad. Memory grows less swooning, more muscular, recall more instructable, like a messenger, and as potent and alarming”.

But Dinshaw is the subject to which she keeps returning. During the time of her blindness Dinshaw and his partner, Claudia, invite her to stay with them. Dinshaw tries to coax her into liking herself, but “when he is really bored he says that I might as well, since I have made such a mess of my own life, rejoin myself to theirs”. Her adoration of Dinshaw (and of Claudia) borders on the abject, and the reader wants to yank her free. “To this day I take very few breaths that are independent of the thought of Fram . . . I feel no experience full or ratified until I have described it to him . . . He is my home. I am homeless.”

In 2009 McWilliam underwent a procedure called Crawford brow suspension, in which tendons from behind her knee were removed and sewn in beneath the skin, stitching the eyelids to the brows.

Out of her experience of blindness, and the years of darkness before, she has produced a book that is both fascinating and exasperating, admirably candid and perhaps, in parts, inadvisable. An antidote to memoir schmaltz (a “self un-help” book), it is ultimately life-affirming. Suicide – given the death of her own mother and, in her own worst times, the hovering thought of it – is an idea returned to, and turned from, repeatedly. “That is what truth to life is. The way to be true to life is to remain alive.”

From The NY Times:


When Darius McCollum (pictured) was arrested on August 31, the circumstances were all too familiar. Once again, he stood accused of taking a bus or a subway car for a ride.

On Sept. 1, Mr. McCollum was in another familiar place: a courtroom, to answer to charges related to his 27th arrest — this one for stealing a Trailways bus from a maintenance facility in Hoboken, N.J.

Mr. McCollum, 45, was ordered held in $100,000 bail at an arraignment in Queens Criminal Court, as prosecutors mentioned his extensive criminal history in New York, New Jersey and North Carolina, and noted that he did not have any significant ties to New York.

After the arraignment, Mr. McCollum’s lawyer, Stephen Johnson, told reporters that his chief focus in the case was getting help for Mr. McCollum’s medical condition, Asperger’s syndrome.

“I think the objective here is to address his disorder,” Mr. Johnson said. “It’s the nature of the disease. He cannot help himself. He’s fixated.”

Mr. Johnson denied reports that Mr. McCollum was homeless and said he lived in Manhattan with his fiancée. He described his client as extremely intelligent and harmless, and pointed to Mr. McCollum’s peaceful surrender to the police on Tuesday as an indication that his client’s actions were not premeditated but spontaneous. “He doesn’t show consciousness of guilt,” Mr. Johnson said. “The fact that he was so calm when he was caught shows he doesn’t know what he did wrong.”

According to the police, after Mr. McCollum was arrested, he admitted that the keys were in the bus when he found it and that he “jumped in and drove away.” The defendant also told police that he had stolen another bus about 20 days earlier.

Mr. McCollum told police that his medical condition was to blame for his infatuation with trains and buses.

Mr. McCollum was first arrested at age 15 after he drove an E train to the World Trade Center in 1981. He was most recently arrested in 2008 for impersonating a subway worker and has served previous stints in prison.

He appeared calm in court and did not speak. He faces 15 years if convicted; his next court date is set for Sept. 15.

Fromm The Dallas Morning News:


AUSTIN – Proposed cuts in community-based care for the elderly, the disabled and the mentally ill would increase wait times for services and eventually impose higher costs on the state and many counties, protesters warned Sept. 1.

Speakers at a Capitol rally said more Texans could stay in their homes if they received services for physical frailty, mental illness and intellectual disabilities. Recently proposed cuts, however, threaten programs that promote independent living – and endanger people's lives, several people said.

"A lot of us are going to end up dead," Bastrop County resident Laura Myers-Doughty said, referring to 20,000 people who would lose community-based mental health treatment and hundreds who would no longer be cared for in state mental hospitals.

The state, which is facing a shortfall of as much as $18 billion in the next two-year budget, is a long way from deciding on cuts. But leaders have asked agencies to outline how they would cut 10 percent from their current spending in 2012-13.

The health department said that, among other things, it would save $124 million by closing 12 percent of beds at five mental hospitals, including Terrell State, and reducing by about 10 percent those served in community programs – currently, about 191,000.

"That's not the way to go," said Myers-Doughty, 37, a mother of two.

She said she suffered abuse as a child and has been hospitalized repeatedly for major depression and post-traumatic stress. Community services and after-care provided by Austin State Hospital have helped stabilize her and her son Zach, 13, who also has depression, she said.

Robin Peyson of NAMI Texas, the state chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said the cuts would drive mentally ill Texans into jails and public hospital emergency rooms.

"This just results in cost shifting to county budgets and it sets people up for crisis, where it just costs more money to serve them," Peyson said.

At the "Invest in Community" rally, others warned that proposed cuts would undermine last year's landmark agreement to fix dangerous conditions inside Texas' institutions for the mentally disabled and provide community-based care for nearly 8,000 people stuck on long waiting lists.

The Department of Aging and Disability Services recently submitted a budget request saying that unless it gets money to replace federal stimulus funds and maintain the 8,000 new slots for community services, it will have to suspend supports for 13,400 people.

From Afrique en lingue:

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea - Significant progress has been made in immunization coverage and efforts to eradicate polio in the African Region, but challenges remain and immediate remedial actions need to be taken, according to a technical document being discussed Wednesday by the ongoing 60th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.

Among the achievements listed in the document is an 85 % coverage for the third dose of DPT-containing vaccine in 2009, compared to 82 %in 2008, with 20 Member States reporting at least 90 % coverage at national level in 2009.

Progress was also recorded in the introduction of new vaccines such as Hepatitis B and Haemophilus Influenza b type vaccines in 45 and 43 countries respectively.

The document said that steady progress was reported in interrupting wild poliovirus transmission in countries with Nigeria, the only polio-endemic country in the Region, reporting only two polio cases at the at the end of April 2010, compared to 236 cases at the same period in 2009.

With regard to measles, the document points out that estimated deaths due to the disease in 2008 had reduced by 92% (representing 28,000 deaths), compared to 2000 levels (371,000 deaths) mainly as a result of the supplemental immunization activities conducted in the Region.

Still, said the document, several challenges face the Region. These include issues related to immunization policy and planning such as failure by countries to update policies to include recent developments; non-enforcement of existing legislation requiring presentation of the immunization status of children at school entry, and low capacity to plan and manage implementation measures targeting hard to-reach areas.

Other challenges are unpredictability of international funding for immunization activities; inadequate infrastructure; low demand for and continued use of immunization services; unreliability of data to allow for quality monitoring and evaluation; significant gaps in meeting surveillance indicators of vaccine-preventable diseases, and limited operational research on immunization in the Africa Region.

The document lists ten recommendations aimed at improving routine immunization activities and accelerating polio eradication in the Region.

These include integrating immunization policy into national health development policies and strategic plans, with immunization interventions quantified, costed and incorporated in the various components of national health systems strengthening; Increasing immunization financing by ensuring that adequate funds are allocated and actually disbursed for routine immunization and polio eradication initiatives and Fostering partnership for immunization through advocacy activities and mobilization of other sectors, leaders and communities to support polio eradication and high immunization coverage.

Others are improving access to new vaccines by intensifying advocacy for reducing the prices of vaccines; Enhancing institutional, human resource and managerial capacity; Broadening community awareness, participation and ownership; Strengthening monitoring and evaluation; Strengthening surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases; Strengthening immunization research, and Institutionalizing an annual African Immunization Week as a means of sustaining advocacy and improving the delivery and uptake of immunization services.

From HealthDay News:

Reading, crossword puzzles and other mentally stimulating activities have pros and cons when it comes to Alzheimer's disease, new research suggests.

In line with prior research, the study finds that such mental activity may slow declines in thinking and memory during normal old age.

But folks who loved these pursuits actually displayed a hastening of their mental decline once symptoms of dementia began to set in, the researchers say.

"We think there's a trade-off," said senior study author Robert Wilson of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Keeping mentally active means that there is "a little more time during which the person is cognitively competent and independent and a little less time in a disabled and dependent state" once dementia does set in, said Wilson, who is senior neuropsychologist at Rush's Alzheimer's Disease Center.

The findings were published online Sept. 1 in Neurology.

Previous work has suggested that engaging in cognitively challenging activities may help ward off the appearance of dementia in older people. To test this, Wilson and his co-workers tracked almost 1,200 older individuals over nearly 12 years.

The team assessed each person's engagement in mentally stimulating pursuits using a 5-point "cogntive activity" scale.

At the time of study enrollment, all of the participants were free of dementia; by the study's end, 614 people were cognitively normal, 395 showed mild cognitive impairment, and 148 had Alzheimer's disease.

The researchers found that increased cognitive activity among normal individuals -- things such as listening to the radio, watching television, reading, playing games and going to museums -- meant that they were less likely to experience cognitive decline over several years.

Specifically, for each gained point on the cognitive activity scale, the rate of mental decline fell by 52 percent over 6 years.

But the opposite was true for those who did go on to develop dementia -- in that case, people who had loved mentally challenging activities actually showed a quicker mental decline after the illness took over. In fact, the rate of decline accelerated by 42 percent for each point on the cognitive activity scale, the researchers report.

Wilson and his colleagues believe that this discrepancy may be explained by the accumulation of neurodegenerative lesions called plaques and tangles in the brains of dementia patients.

Previous work has suggested that mentally stimulating exercises do not actually prevent these lesions from accumulating. Instead, they allow individuals to remain relatively cognitively normal for a while longer, even in the presence of those lesions.

However, once the plaques and tangles accumulate to a certain threshold, high cognitive activity can no longer prevent symptoms of dementia, and the behavioral signs of the disease appear.

Because people can behave normally for years -- even while brain lesions are appearing -- at the point at which they're first diagnosed with dementia, a person with a history of cognitive activity actually has more plaques and tangles in their brain than a person who wasn't so cognitively active, Wilson believes.

"The person who has a history of being cognitively active actually has more of the pathology in their brain, and so really has more severe disease," he theorized. "That's why they decline more rapidly from that point on."

According to the authors, the results suggest that mental exercises help prevent the onset of dementia, but only if they're started before signs of cognitive impairment appear -- after that point, the brain is probably too damaged for such interventions to make a difference.

"The results do suggest that mental exercises help stave off dementia but then increase mental decline after dementia onset," said Charles Hall, professor of neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City. He cautioned that it remains possible that some unknown factor still connects mental activity with these effects.

To be sure that there is a direct causal relationship between mental exercises and the effects the authors found, "it's really important that we do intervention studies to test this hypothesis," Hall said.

From ANI in India:

NEW DELHI, India -- National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) chairman, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, on Sept. 3, released a book that focuses on the rights of persons with disabilities.

The book titled "Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities - A guide by Commonwealth Secretariat" was released in the presence of a host of luminaries and key members of the NHRC.

An NHRC release said that it has been deeply concerned about the protection and promotion of rights of persons with disabilities. The Commission is of the view that the persons with disabilities should enjoy all human rights on an equal basis with others. Towards this end, the Commission has adopted a multi-pronged approach which includes redressal of individual complaints, legislative and policy reform, spreading of awareness etc.

The Commission has been involved since the formative stages of the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The Commission advocated the ratification of the UN convention and finally the Government of India ratified the Convention on 1st October 2007.

As a follow up action, the Commission appointed a Special Rapporteur on Disability related issues and constituted a Core Advisory Group on Disability to advise the Commission on matters connected with and incidental to the promotion, protection and monitoring of the human rights for persons with disabilities.

With a view to assess whether existing Programmes and Policies for persons with disabilities are having the desired impact and to identify gaps in implementation, if any, and to suggest appropriate strategies to deal with them, the Commission organized five Regional review meetings on Disability during 2008-09 in various parts of the country.

The Commission has advocated to the Government of India for the ratification of Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Commission is of the view that the Optional Protocol will strengthen the accountability mechanism and serve as an additional tool for the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities.

The Commission reviewed The Copy Right (Amendment) Bill, 2010 from Human Rights perspective and noted that it does not meet the demand of print disabled person. With a view to protect the rights of the print disabled people, the Commission made recommendations for amendments in The Copy Right (Amendment) Bill, 2010 which is being examined by the Parliamentary Standing Committee.

With a view to monitor the implementation of various laws, policies, concerning the rights of the persons with disabilities, Special Rapporteurs, NHRC have been visiting various states. The Commission has also asked all the State Governments to give wide publicity to UNPRCD to create awareness regarding the rights of persons with disabilities.

The book enumerates various provisions of the Convention in a very simple and informative manner. It not only clarifies that States should not discriminate against persons with disabilities, but also sets out the many steps that States must take to create an enabling environment so that persons with disabilities can enjoy real equality in society.

urther, this book is also accessible to the persons with visual impairments. This publication has been released simultaneously at the four centers around the world by the Commonwealth Secretariat. In recognition of the work done by NHRC in the field of protecting and promoting Human Rights of persons with disabilities, NHRC is selected as one of the four institutions for releasing this book.

From The Times Record:

FREEPORT, Maine — Months after a Freeport woman with severe multiple sclerosis filed a human rights complaint alleging discrimination by town officials, the Town Council at 7 p.m. Sept. 7 will consider adopting an Americans with Disabilities Act policy for the town.

At Tuesday’s meeting, councilors also are scheduled to consider other agenda items related to the disabilities act and human rights.

In May, Marianne McGettigan confirmed that she filed a complaint against Freeport municipal government after she said she was not able to sign a petition because the town clerk had been given no information about accommodations.

On Tuesday, the council will consider action relative to adopting an Americans with Disabilities Act policy for the town, and action relative to approving a form to provide “Notice under the Maine Human Rights and Americans with Disabilities Acts.”

According to the proposed “Town of Freeport Maine Human Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act Policy,” a clause titled “Accessibility to Town Buildings” reads, in part: “When possible, the town will provide accessible and barrier-free access for qualified individuals with disabilities to town-owned and leased buildings and will make all reasonable modifications to programs to ensure access in the event a building is not accessible to a qualified individual with disabilities.”

In addition, the council on Tuesday will consider appointing the town’s human resources officer as the town’s human rights coordinator.

In June, Freeport Town Manager Dale Olmstead told the Town Council that the town made — and the Maine Human Rights Commission “signed off on” — a settlement offer to McGettigan, adding, “I think it will be resolved fairly soon.”

But in early July, McGettigan said she has had no communication about any offer, and referred questions about the petition to her attorney.

Patricia Ryan, executive director of the Maine Human Rights Commission, said Thursday that no case involving McGettigan or the town of Freeport has been closed. Ryan said she cannot comment on open cases or confirm that a case has been filed until it has been closed.

From Shantha Rau Barriga at The Guardian in the UK. In the picture, Doreen Aciro recovers from reconstructive surgery following an attack by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. Here's the report on disabled women in Uganda from Human Rights Watch.


In the aftermath of war, civil unrest and disaster, there are always untold stories, but only rarely do you hear of the isolation, neglect and abuse of women and girls with disabilities.

Charity lived in a camp for internally displaced persons in northern Uganda for 11 years because of the brutal conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government. As a child, she lost the use of her legs due to an undiagnosed illness. When I met her in April, she told me that others in the camp said to her: "You are useless. You are a waste of food. You should just die so that others can eat the food."

While living in the camp, she was raped and had a child. She wanted to report the rape but the rapist's family threatened to take away her child. She'd like to get tested for HIV, but because she would have to crawl a long distance and sleep on the road to get to the testing site, she's resigned to not knowing. She was promised a wheelchair by an aid group, but would have to travel more than 45km to get it.

Unfortunately, Charity's story is not unique. Women and girls with disabilities in northern Uganda experience rampant stigma and exclusion, sexual- and gender-based violence, and insurmountable obstacles to accessing justice and medical care. Before the conflict in Uganda, communities and family members supported people with disabilities. However, years of abductions, displacements and violence have eroded, if not destroyed, these networks.

Some of the women I interviewed were born with disabilities, others had been affected by diseases such as polio, and others were shot or wounded by landmines during the conflict. According to a national survey in 2007, approximately one person in five in Uganda has disabilities. In northern Uganda, because of the long and brutal conflict, disability rates are thought to be even higher. Yet, despite their numbers, individuals with disabilities remain invisible; inconvenient and uncomfortable reminders of the conflict, perceived burdens to redevelopment and renewal.

Now, with greater peace and security, the people of northern Uganda are trying to rebuild their lives. The challenges are daunting as families return home, settle more permanently in the camps, or relocate to start fresh. For women with disabilities, the process is even more complex and gruelling and most don't have the same choices. Many are deciding they are better off remaining in camps, where they may at least be getting some services.

Uganda receives hundreds of millions of dollars in development assistance annually, yet women with disabilities such as Charity are not benefiting. The government has emphasised infrastructure over individual needs, and has done little to consider the particular needs of people with disabilities.

Development plans might include ramps for schools and hospitals, but without a wheelchair or sign language interpreters, access to education or reproductive healthcare is a distant reality.

In rebuilding the north, Uganda and its donors have a chance to change that. People with disabilities should be included in education, programmes to prevent and address sexual- and gender-based violence, reproductive health services, HIV testing, prevention and treatment, and income-generating programmes. Police stations and healthcare centres need ramps, trained staff and sign language interpreters. In planning these efforts, people with disabilities themselves, particularly women, need to be seen and heard.

These lessons apply not only to northern Uganda, but to emergency, conflict and refugee situations around the world. The first step is listening to people with disabilities and recognising their needs and rights: to be treated with dignity, to participate fully in society, to access services, to achieve the highest attainable standard of health.

Of course, all of these efforts will not immediately change the daily stigma and discrimination women with disabilities face, including at the hands of their families and neighbours. But it is a start, and it will inevitably undermine these prejudices and bring individuals with disabilities out of the shadows and into everyday life.

The Ugandan government is among nearly 90 countries that have ratified the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, pledging to give people with disabilities, including women, full equality and freedom from discrimination. The government should ensure that their actions equal their promises. Charity and the millions of women with disabilities in Uganda are counting on it.

From Taiwan News:

A Taiwanese student has invented free software which allows visually impaired people to feel pictures, reports said Sept. 2.

Peng Yu-hsuan of National Chung Cheng University in Minhsiung, Chiayi County, said he developed the system, known as "Dark Angel, the blind people's camera," to benefit even more visually impaired people.

The university said that the information technology institute researcher found that prices for computer systems for the blind started at NT$50,000 (US$1,500) with additional necessary aides not coming cheap either. As a result, Peng researched and developed the cell phone-based system with assistance from assistant professor Lo Hsi-wu.

Users take pictures with Google's Android system on their cell phone and transfer them with the assistance of voice recognition and the wireless Bluetooth system to a screen which shows them in relief, Peng said.

Users with sight problems can touch the images and feel the objects in the pictures, he said. Touch replaced sight, and flat images turned into three-dimensional pictures, according to Peng.

The inventor said that during the research process he called in the assistance of a hospital eye specialist and a visually impaired fellow student at the university. Peng said he needed their opinions on whether the system could meet practical everyday needs.

After putting the software online, Peng said he received e-mails of encouragement from all over the world.

From Helen Henderson, Disabilities Reporter at The Toronto Star. In the picture, Anthony Curry and Carrie Gibson star in Not Just Ramps, a play about physical and emotional access issues, to be presented in September by the Job Opportunity Information Network for Persons with Disabilities.


It’s one thing to know your rights, quite another to know how to make them a reality.

The law is on your side if you have a disability and need some flexibility or a particular piece of equipment to make the workplace a level playing field. But how do you handle the issue in a job interview?

“If I waited for an organization to make accommodations to get a job, I’d be always unemployed.”

That’s how one participant put it in a report on a recent roundtable dialogue on workplace inclusion sponsored by Deloitte Canada. “The onus can’t just be on organizations. If we want to make a difference, we should be able to advocate for ourselves.”

Easier said than done.

How do you talk about disability when you’re looking for a job? How do prospective employees and employers explore what they can offer each other? Answering that question is part of the mission of Ontario’s Job Opportunity Information Network (JOIN), a network of community agencies that helps disabled people find jobs and employers recruit qualified candidates with disabilities.

JOIN released the Deloitte report at a business leadership network breakfast this summer. It’s developing a mentoring program to help job seekers with the interview process and for its next business leadership function this month, it will be presenting a little bit of theatre.

Not Just Ramps, featuring Anthony Curry and Carrie Gibson, looks at emotional as well as physical access issues.

As the actors put it, they aim to “explore access on a multitude of levels.” That includes understanding society’s broadly based fear of disabilities, demystifying the labels applied to people with disabilities and affirming the concept of human dignity.

“Making diversity a priority in Canadian organizations is imperative — not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is critical to the future success of our businesses and our economy, the Deloitte Canada report argues.

“While some progress has been made in the areas of race and gender, people with disabilities continue to be significantly under-represented in our workplaces,” Jane Allen the company’s chief diversity officer says in introducing the report. “Their numbers are growing steadily . . . and it is becoming increasingly important to include this community in corporate Canada.”

Allen says job seekers with disabilities “have to be proactive” in terms of working out the accommodations they need. Learning how to do that effectively will be part of the mentoring project planned with JOIN, she adds.

But the advantages of hiring qualified people with disabilities to businesses are made very clear in the report.

Citing a Statistics Canada survey, it notes that 90 per cent of people with disabilities did as well or better at their jobs than non-disabled co-workers, 86 per cent rated average or better in attendance and staff retention among people disabilities was 72 per cent higher.

Many senior management teams understand the business case for diversity, the Deloitte report notes. However, it adds, “unfortunately, most hiring decisions are made by recruiters and middle managers . . . If those groups are not educated on the benefits of diversity, the need to be inclusive of people with disabilities and the organization’s business case, there will be barriers in the company’s hiring practices.”

For inclusion to work, the Deloitte report emphasizes: “Our number one challenge is attitude — not just of the potential employer, but also of the person with the disability. The individuals must challenge their ideas of themselves and their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as their compromised self-esteem or self-confidence.”

From The NY Times:


In the 71 years since the Yankees slugger Lou Gehrig (pictured) declared himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” despite dying from a disease that would soon bear his name, he has stood as America’s leading icon of athletic valor struck down by random, inexplicable fate.

A peer-reviewed paper to be published Sept. 1 in a leading journal of neuropathology, however, suggests that the demise of athletes like Gehrig and soldiers given a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, might have been catalyzed by injuries only now becoming understood: concussions and other brain trauma.

Although the paper does not discuss Gehrig specifically, its authors in interviews acknowledged the clear implication: Lou Gehrig might not have had Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Doctors at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bedford, Mass., and the Boston University School of Medicine, the primary researchers of brain damage among deceased National Football League players, said that markings in the spinal cords of two players and one boxer who also received a diagnosis of A.L.S. indicated that those men did not have A.L.S. They had a different fatal disease, doctors said, caused by concussionlike trauma, that erodes the central nervous system in similar ways.

The finding could prompt a redirection in the study of motor degeneration in athletes and military veterans being given diagnoses of A.L.S. at rates considerably higher than normal, said several experts in A.L.S. who had seen early versions of the paper. Patients with significant histories of brain trauma could be considered for different types of treatment in the future, perhaps leading toward new pathways for a cure.

“Most A.L.S. patients don’t go to autopsy — there’s no need to look at your brain and spinal cord,” said Dr. Brian Crum, an assistant professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “But a disease can look like A.L.S., it can look like Alzheimer’s, and it’s not when you look at the actual tissue. This is something that needs to be paid attention to.”

The finding’s relevance to Gehrig is less clear. But the Yankees legend had a well-documented history of significant concussions on the baseball field, and perhaps others sustained as a battering-ram football halfback in high school and at Columbia University. Given that, it’s possible that Gehrig’s renowned commitment to playing through injuries like concussions, which resulted in his legendary streak of playing in 2,130 consecutive games over 14 years, could have led to his condition.

“Here he is, the face of his disease, and he may have had a different disease as a result of his athletic experience,” said Dr. Ann McKee, the director of the neuropathology laboratory for the New England Veterans Administration Medical Centers and the lead neuropathologist on the study.

Gehrig’s name does not appear in the paper; his case was discussed in interviews merely as an illustration of the new uncertainty surrounding cases resembling his, said Dr. Robert Stern, who serves with Dr. McKee as co-director of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. The cause of his disease will most likely never be determined because his remains were cremated, and now lie in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, N.Y.

More significantly, both doctors said, the finding solidifies a long-suspected connection between A.L.S.-like motor disease and head trauma experienced in collision sports and combat.

“People are being misdiagnosed clinically while they’re alive as having A.L.S. when in fact they have a different motor-neuron disease,” Dr. Stern said. He added, “Scientists will be able to get at a faster understanding of the disease in general, and therefore effective treatments, by knowing more about who’s at risk and who’s not.”

According to the A.L.S. Association, up to 30,000 people in the United States currently have A.L.S., an incurably fatal disease among primarily 40- to 70-year-old men that results in the swift and steady atrophy of all voluntary muscle control. Gehrig was its first prominent victim, dying two years after his 1939 diagnosis; some others, like the British physicist Stephen Hawking, now 68, can live for decades with fully functioning brains inside bodies that have wasted away.

The new finding could be double-edged for organizations fighting A.L.S.: it sheds some light on possible causes and research avenues, but also suggests that Gehrig might not have had it.

“It’s extremely interesting — it builds a more interesting picture, but what this all exactly means about how the disease plays out requires further investigation,” said Dr. Lucie Bruijn, the chief scientist for the A.L.S. Association. Dr. Bruijn described Gehrig as “an important fund-raising tool,” similar to the actor Michael J. Fox having Parkinson’s disease.

“It’s a name and a face that get people to understand what kind of a disease this really is,” she said. “It makes it more personal.”

A link between professional football and A.L.S. follows recent discoveries of on-field brain trauma leading to dementia and other cognitive decline in some N.F.L. veterans. Dr. McKee and her group identified 14 former N.F.L. players since 1960 as having been given diagnoses of A.L.S., a total about eight times higher than what would be expected among men in the United States of similar ages.

However, the doctors cautioned, the existence of the increased number of A.L.S.-like cases should not create the same level of public alarm as the cognitive effects of brain trauma, which affect hundreds of former professionals and perhaps thousands of boys and girls across many youth sports.

Recent epidemiological studies have suggested that brain trauma in sports can be a risk factor for A.L.S.; for example, a 2005 paper found that Italian professional soccer players had developed the disease at rates about six times higher than normal. Studies have also linked service in the United States military to higher risk for A.L.S., possibly because of battlefield collisions and blast injuries.

The study, to be published Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology, represents the first firm pathological indications that brain trauma results in motor-neuron degeneration, and that the resulting disease (at least in the three men studied) is actually not A.L.S. It is a different disorder with different markings, specifically a pattern of two proteins in the spinal cord that compromise nerve function.

Dr. McKee had already found 12 deceased N.F.L. veterans to have had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive disease in brain tissue that results in cognitive impairment and eventually dementia. Two of those men — Wally Hilgenberg, a longtime linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings in the 1970s, and Eric Scoggins, who played only three games at linebacker for the 1982 San Francisco 49ers — also had A.L.S. diagnosed by their physicians.

When Dr. McKee examined the spinal-cord tissue of those men, as well as a former boxer who had A.L.S.-like symptoms, she found dramatically high levels of tau and TDP-43, two proteins known to cause motor-neuron degeneration. She said that they would appear in the cord as a result of blows to the brain, with the proteins probably traveling down the spinal cord, rather than direct injury to the spinal cord itself.

Dr. McKee said that because she has never seen that protein pattern in A.L.S. victims without significant histories of brain trauma, she and her team were confident the three athletes did not have A.L.S., but a disorder that erodes its victims’ nervous system in similar ways. McKee added that finding the distinctive pattern in all three men with A.L.S. symptoms was more than enough pathological evidence to make her conclusion.

“If we can create this in laboratory mice, which are easily genetically altered and breed quickly, we can learn about the pathogenesis of this disorder, and then provide treatment,” Dr. McKee said. The consensus among experts is that brain trauma is almost certainly not solely responsible for diseases like this.

Those afflicted probably have genetic factors leading to susceptibility, with concussions serving as catalyst. In that regard, some doctors said, years from now athletes could be tested for the gene that leaves them vulnerable, not unlike how some today check for sickle-cell trait.

More than any other American athlete, perhaps even the player who eventually broke his consecutive games streak, Cal Ripken Jr., Lou Gehrig has come to symbolize a commitment to playing every day, especially through injuries. That renown partly derives from well-documented incidents in which he sustained significant concussions but continued to play in ways now known to be dangerous.

The most notable came in June 1934, when, in an exhibition game, Gehrig was hit with a pitch just above the right eye and was knocked unconscious for what was described in news reports as five minutes. (He was not wearing a batting helmet; such protection was not meaningfully introduced in the major leagues until the 1940s or required until 1958.) He was removed from the game.

Despite a headache, a doctor’s recommendation that he sit out and a bump on his head so large that he had to wear one of Babe Ruth’s larger caps, Gehrig played the next day against the Washington Senators to continue his streak at 1,415 games. “A little thing like that can’t stop us Dutchmen,” Gehrig told a reporter, according to Jonathan Eig’s definitive biography of Gehrig, “Luckiest Man.”

In 1924, during a postgame brawl with the Detroit Tigers, Gehrig swung at Ty Cobb and fell, hit his head on concrete, and was briefly knocked out. While playing first base against the Tigers in September 1930, Gehrig was hit in the face and knocked unconscious by a ground ball. He was knocked out again by an oncoming runner in 1935.

Those are the four incidents in which Gehrig’s being knocked unconscious was notable enough to be reported in newspapers. He most likely sustained other concussions that were never noticed or considered meaningful — for example, when he was hit in the head with a pitch during a 1933 game against Washington but continued playing — either in baseball or while serving as a halfback for Commerce High School in New York and later Columbia University.

“Obviously he played in the days before helmets, and he led with his head and with his shoulders, certainly on the football field,” said Mr. Eig, adding that he found no record of brain injuries in news reports of Gehrig’s football career. “On the baseball field he got knocked around a bit because he could be klutzy. Given the barnstorming he did in the off-season and his football career and style, there’s no telling how many additional shots to the head he took.”

Gehrig’s handling of injuries inspired reverence among fans and the news media. Concussions then almost resembled cigarette smoking, in that what is now known to be harmful was in Gehrig’s time considered benign, even charming. An advertisement for Camel cigarettes that filled the back page of Life magazine included various testimonials to “Larruping Lou’s” playing through injuries, including the 1934 incident.

“Another time, he was knocked out by a ‘bean ball,’ yet next day walloped 3 triples in 5 innings,” the ad reads. “Gehrig’s ‘Iron-Man’ record is proof of his splendid physical condition. As Lou says: ‘All the years I’ve been playing, I’ve been careful about my physical condition. Smoke? I smoke and enjoy it. My cigarette is Camel.’”

Gehrig showed the first signs of degenerative motor disease in 1938, when his hands began to ache and his legs and shoulders gradually weakened. Gehrig’s rickety spring training in 1939 indicated to even casual observers that something was quite wrong; after a poor April, on May 2, Gehrig told Yankees Manager Joe McCarthy that he would not play that day against Detroit, ending his streak at 2,130 games, dating back 14 seasons. He rested for a month before seeking some answers at the Mayo Clinic in June.

The diagnosis was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, then a virtually unknown disease that doctors explained to the public as a form of “infantile paralysis” resembling polio. It had no known cause, and was not described as fatal. Gehrig’s baseball career was immediately over, and two weeks later, on July 4, he was honored at Yankee Stadium in an on-field ceremony between games of a doubleheader.

Speaking through microphones to more than 60,000 hushed fans, Gehrig took the scene and called himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth” — a remark that quickly symbolized his humility and, of course, just how unlucky the slugger truly was. Gehrig’s once muscular frame, so seemingly perfect that only a few years before he had auditioned to play Tarzan in the movies, quickly deteriorated.

By the time Gehrig died two years later, A.L.S. was already commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a disorder known as much for the player as for the seemingly arbitrary way in which he was chosen to die from it.

The Mayo Clinic retains Gehrig’s medical records but has never disclosed them per institutional policy, a spokesman said. A neurologist who was allowed to inspect them years ago, Dr. Jay Van Gerpen of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., was not permitted by the clinic to be interviewed for this article.

In considering how Gehrig’s disease could be pinpointed, Dr. McKee of the Boston University group said that if Gehrig had been embalmed, rather than cremated, she theoretically could examine remaining tissue. He might have had A.L.S., like the more than hundreds of thousands of Americans who have had it since, and who have perhaps taken some solace in how such a famous and admirable man as Gehrig had it, too. Or, given his history of brain injuries, Gehrig might have been like Wally Hilgenberg and the growing number of athletes who, as science evolves, stand with increasing company as testimony to concussions’ shocking cost.

“Lou Gehrig wanted to know everything possible about his own illness — he got to know his doctors, talked with scientists with obscure approaches, and volunteered himself as a guinea pig to find any way to combat the disease,” Mr. Eig said. “He wouldn’t stick his head in the sand and not want to hear about this. If he were around today, he would continue to have that same curiosity, and that burning desire, to help his situation, or to help others.”