AAPDDC

Click Here to go to the AAPD home page – American Association of People with Disabilities

Cinema has a long history of dealing with the topic of disabilities. Although the films listed below vary in quality and scope, all of them feature a main character with a physical disability.

Many, if not all of these films are available on DVD. It would be great if someone could assemble a montage of clips from a few of these films and upload it to YouTube. This could easily be accomplished using a video editing software program such as AVS4you. There are also video converter programs for easy duplication of movie clips.

The films are listed in chronological order, from oldest to newest.
Continue reading ‘Movies About People with Disabilities’ »

A government program designed to reduce unemployment among people with disabilities is also providing vital support for the mission of the United States armed forces throughout the world.

The Javits-Wagner-O’Day (JWOD) program employs more than 45,000 people with disabilities, primarily the blind, although other severely disabled individuals also participate. JWOD is the largest employment source in the country for the disabled. It not only provides them with a means of earning a living, but it offers training and job skills development. JWOD has gone a long way toward addressing high unemployment (over 70 percent) among the blind and other people with severe disabilities.

JWOD dates back to the post-Depression era when the Wagner-O’Day Act was enacted in 1938 under President Roosevelt. The original act provided a means for agencies that administered services to the blind to act as product vendors to the federal government. The Act was amended in 1971 with the help of Sen. Jacob Javits to allow other people with severe disabilities to join the program, and for vendor agencies to provide services along with products to the fed.

The central administering agency for the JWOD program works through over 600 nonprofit organizations that provide jobs for the severely disabled. Among the many products and services that participants provide to the government are support goods to U.S. troops in the field:

Clothing
Garments that protect the troops against chemical weaponry
Military fatigues, dress garments, and camouflage garments

Medical Supplies
First aid kits that each individual soldier carries in a pouch for administering medical care in the field.
Bandages are produced by the millions

Personal Care Items
Dozens of ordinary household goods and supplies are bundled into courtesy packages for the soldiers in theater.

Electronics
Computer software, cell phone batteries, and other electronic items are provided to help with communication to loved ones at home. AVS Video Converter is a great way to create your own videos of your family to send overseas. A subscription to Spotmau Powersuite ensures that computers in theater are kept running efficiently.

The valiant performance of U.S. troops in the field is backed up by the courage of the people at home, including people with severe disabilities working to keep up the flow of supplies overseas.

Blu-Ray discs were launched in 2006, but only in the past few years have they started to catch on with the public. Part of the early resistance came about because of the war between HD-DVD technology and Blu-Ray. This battle was strikingly similar to the contest between VHS and Beta when video players first appeared on the market. Until 2008, HD-DVD was winning the race and the bulk of R&D efforts were going in that direction. According to Wikipedia, two events helped turn the tide:

In 2006, Sony’s Playstation was updated with Blu Ray player capabilities on board
In 2007, the Blu-Ray developers added advanced copy protection to the discs

All this led to the decision in 2008 by the makers of HD-DVD to abandon the technology. The only reason HD-DVD is still supported today is because consumers had already invested heavily in purchasing the discs and equipment; therefore, there’s still a secondary market for it.

Blu-Ray has a huge number of advantages. First among them is image quality. Paired with HDTV, a movie viewed in Blu-Ray looks absolutely stunning. And since the technology seems to have won the format wars, it’s likely to be stable for a number of years. The number of movie titles available is growing fast, with about 6,000 available as of the date of this posting. Sales of players and discs have doubled every year since 2008, reaching $350 million in 2010. Even some public libraries have added the discs to their lineup of movie titles available for checkout. In short, Blu-Ray has gone mainstream.

The disadvantages? It’s still expensive. Each movie title costs $5 to $10 more than the corresponding title on DVD. The players have decreased in price rapidly as the technology gains acceptance with consumers, but even so, the rock bottom price point to put one in your home theater is $150, and it won’t get you many features.

The biggest stumbling block to consider, though, is whether you can afford to maintain two separate libraries. Blu-Ray discs can only be played on players with Blu-Ray capability; your DVD player can’t read them. Neither can your computer, unless you buy third-party Blu Ray ripper software. For people who like to keep the option of portability in their moviegoing lives, this means buying a duplicate copy of each Blu-Ray movie in their collection in the old DVD format. Some studios have addressed this by including a DVD copy in each package; most of them haven’t.

Fortunately, there’s no need to get rid of your old DVD movies and start over. Nowadays it’s rare to find a Blu-Ray player that isn’t backward compatible: that is, it will also play DVD discs. DVD doesn’t look all that great on an HDTV compared with the sparkling quality of the new technology, but at least you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Several persons have expressed fears about the safety and of generic drugs. Their issues arise out of the fact that generics aren’t compelled to go through as challenging a series of testing as the original drug.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration states that the critical compound in generics has already been tested and it would be pointless to repeat the process seeing that generics are made from the exact active ingredient. Champions of generics additionally argue that bioequivalence tests are adequate to make sure the drug is as safe as the original, because they differ so little.

In nearly all instances there is nothing to be anxious about, as generics are carefully controlled. Generic drugs have been found to have several of the troubles of the original, including similar side effects. However some comparative experiments have revealed that while quite a number of generic drugs turned in indentical performance with as the original, some departed noticeably.

If your health care provider switches you from a brand name edition of a medication to a generic and you spot an alteration in your well-being, go to your doctor who will be able to aid you.

Research the particular drug you are on, particularly any medical reviews which have been carried out and discuss with other people to learn what their experiences with the drug have been. Information like this will let you to make an intelligent evaluation as regards your medication.

Here’s a summary of Medicaid benefits for disabled children and adults aged 3 through 21 years old.  Medicaid benefits for young people include home health care, health screenings, transportation, various types of therapy, and psychological services.  Anyone can apply for Medicaid, but that doesn’t mean everyone is eligible.  Because the program is jointly funded by states and the federal government, eligibility requirements vary widely from state to state.

Continue reading ‘Getting Medicaid Benefits For Children With Disabilities’ »