July was named Disability Pride Month to commemorate the Americans with Disabilities Act being signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990. The ADA made it illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities, forced public buildings to be accessible for all and required employers to provide reasonable accommodations.

Our RecTech team welcomed partner Motivation to the Human Performance Lab at the WHARF on Friday, July 7, to show off and get feedback for the team’s prototype frame runner in development.

UAB continues to prioritize disability health research and expand its footprint in the growing field of inclusion science.

NCHPAD Predoc Julianne Clina transformed State of Slim to a format that can be utilized by people with disabilities – the emblem of what CEDHARS Director Dr. Jim Rimmer calls inclusion science.

Dr. Robin Lanzi, professor in the School of Public Health Department of Health Behavior and Psychology, is the CEDHARS core director for Community Engagement and NCHPAD national director for community engagement and translational sciences. She founded the UAB Mental Health Ambassadors Program as her Honors College Faculty Fellows initiative.

A series of “happy accidents” has set soon-to-be Dr. Julianne Clina on the exact path she was supposed to be on all along.

The 50th annual American Spinal Injury Association had a strong UAB flavor, prominently featuring multiple CEDHARS members at the gathering held from April 17-19 in Atlanta.

April 10, 2013, is a day I’ll never forget. It was opening day for the Barons at the new Regions Field in downtown Birmingham. It was a day my friend and avid baseball fan, Butch, had been looking forward to.

The recognitions are pouring in for CEDHARS Co-Director and Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Director of Research Dr. Yu-Ying Chen.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan dedicated March as National Developmental Disabilities Month to increase awareness for Americans with developmental disabilities and to provide “both encouragement and the opportunities they need to lead productive lives and achieve their full potential.” This designation was part of a small but important shift in public perception and sparked grass-roots movements, which eventually led to landmark legislation, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and later the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

The popular Mindfulness, Exercise and Nutrition to Optimize Resilience (MENTOR) is recruiting for its current waves of participants who learn the skills and gain the confidence to thrive as a person with disability living a wholistic life.

An amazing event happened the week before last in UAB’s Wellness, Health and Research Facility, WHARF. A young lady by the name of Harper Nichols, a recent graduate of UAB, transformed the building into a living, breathing culture of disability art.

Dr. Gitendra Uswatte is collaborating with his long-time colleagues Dr. Edward Taub and Dr. Karlene Ball, university professors, on treating the cognitive effects of long-haul COVID with a revolutionary intervention.

Movement to Music (M2M) is a rhythmic based exercise program delivered through Zoom in which participants can actively engage with instructors and other participants in the convenience of their own home.

Dr. Yumi Kim was on track to go into the real world with a business degree in hand, but a fall from the eighth floor of an apartment building set her on a path of recovery and a new career.

Dr. Keith McGregor, CEDHARS scientist and director of research in the School of Health Professions, had a “record scratch” moment when talking with other UAB researchers about interventions, or lack thereof, for neuroCOVID. So, they decided to act.

Personal life events have set a CEDHARS associate scientist down a path of fulfilling research, and now the Ph.D. student will continue her work with the aid of a prestigious fellowship at the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research.

In an editorial that appeared in The New York Times last week, Dr. Lisa Iezzoni, a researcher and physician from Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, conducted a set of focus groups among her peer physicians to examine their attitudes toward treating people with disabilities. Disappointingly, she concluded that the medical profession continues to be largely discriminatory in providing healthcare for people with disabilities. While I have been an active reader of Dr. Iezzoni’s research for the last two decades and have heard many times before that physicians aren’t treating patients with disabilities in the same way as patients without disabilities, the findings from this new study were even more dramatic and shocking than her previous reports. Here is a quote that summarizes the study findings:

Dr. Anjali Forber-Pratt, director of the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research had a successful visit to UAB’s campus last week, meeting with various NIDILRR grantee stakeholders as well as giving a seminar on disability identity.

Each morning after doing a few chores, I open two newspapers on my computer – the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).  The Times recognized the importance of covering stories on people with disabilities several years ago and runs a regular column on disability that appears every few weeks.  The series led to the book About Us, which is a terrific collection of personal stories written by people with disabilities.