Category Archives: Awareness

Wheelchair Van Conversion Styles: Side-Entry Vs. Rear-Entry

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There are several wheelchair accessible van conversion styles you’ll want to consider when choosing the right mobility solution for you. One decision you’ll have to make is to choose between a side-entry wheelchair van and a rear-entry wheelchair accessible van.

Side-Entry Vs. Rear-Entry Wheelchair Vans
One of the most important choices you’ll make in selecting a handicap accessible wheelchair van is side entry versus rear entry. Your choice will impact such things as the wheelchair seating positions, your ability to accommodate other passengers, and parking options. Side-entry wheelchair vans represent the majority of the market—over 75% for most personal use vehicles. However, rear-entry wheelchair vans are also gaining in popularity as more products become available. Here is a look at some key points you’ll want to be aware of.

Style Side-entry wheelchair minivans Rear-entry wheelchair minivans
Advantages
  • Enter and exit safely onto curbside away from traffic
  • Drive from a wheelchair or sit in the front passenger position in a wheelchair or driver position
  • More choices available
  • More storage space
  • Park in any parking space—no extra room required for ramp (excluding parallel parking)
  • Side passenger doors aren’t blocked by a ramp
  • Mid-passenger seats can be mounted next to the wheelchair position
  • Great for long wheelchairs/leg rests
  • Less expensive conversion
  • More ground clearance
Important options
  • Power ramp and doors
  • Power kneeling system
  • In-floor ramp or fold-up ramp (some ramps are manual)
  • Power ramp and doors
  • Power kneeling system
  • Driver swivel seats available
  • Manual conversion available
Limitations
  • Requires handicap parking space/extra room for ramp deployment
  • Some driveways aren’t wide enough to accommodate a van
  • Must exit and enter from traffic area
  • It is not possible to drive from the wheelchair and/or having the wheelchair in the front passenger position
  • Less storage space available
Conversion price $19,000-$25,000*
*Cost of conversion only (vehicle cost is additional).		 $17,000-$22,000*
*Cost of conversion only (vehicle cost is additional).

Osteoporosis Awareness

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General Facts

  • Osteoporosis is a disease of the bone that makes a person’s bones weak and more likely to break. Approximately 9 million Americans have osteoporosis and another 43 million have low bone density, placing them at increased risk.
  • This means that nearly 60% of adults age 50 and older are at risk of breaking a bone and should be concerned about bone health.
  • One in two women and up to one in four men will break a bone in their lifetime due to osteoporosis. For women, the incidence is greater than that of heart attack, stroke and breast cancer combined.
  • There is no cure for osteoporosis, but there are steps you can take to prevent, slow or stop its progress. Diet, exercise and a healthy lifestyle are keys to preventing and managing the disease.
  • NOF recommends five steps to improve bone health and prevent osteoporosis:
    1. Get the calcium and vitamin D you need every day.
    2. Do regular weight-bearing and muscle-strengthening exercises.
    3. Don’t smoke and don’t drink too much alcohol.
    4. Talk to your healthcare provider about your chance of getting osteoporosis and ask when you should have a bone density test.
    5. Take an osteoporosis medication when it’s right for you.

About Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is a disease of the bone.

  • Osteoporosis is often called a “silent disease” because you cannot feel your bones getting weaker.
  • You may not even know you have osteoporosis until after you break a bone.

Osteoporosis is serious, even deadly.

  • A woman’s risk of hip fracture is equal to her combined risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer.
  • A man is more likely to break a bone due to osteoporosis than he is to get prostate cancer.
  • 24 percent of hip fracture patients age 50 and over die in the year following the fracture.
  • Six months after a hip fracture, only 15 percent of patients can walk across a room unaided.
  • Every year, of nearly 300,000 hip fracture patients, one-quarter end up in nursing homes and half never regain previous function

Osteoporosis is costly.

  • Osteoporosis-related bone breaks cost patients, their families and the healthcare system $19 billion annually.
  • By 2025, experts predict that osteoporosis will be responsible for three million fractures resulting in $25.3 billion in costs.

Osteoporosis is preventable.

  • About 85-90 percent of adult bone mass is acquired by age 18 in girls and 20 in boys.
  • Building strong bones during childhood and adolescence can help prevent osteoporosis later in life.
  • NOF recommends five steps to improve bone health and prevent osteoporosis:
    1. Get the calcium and vitamin D you need every day.
    2. Do regular weight-bearing and muscle-strengthening exercises.
    3. Don’t smoke and don’t drink too much alcohol.
    4. Talk to your healthcare provider about your chance of getting osteoporosis and ask when you should have a bone density test.
    5. Take an osteoporosis medication when it’s right for you.

Osteoporosis is manageable.

  • Although there is no cure for osteoporosis, there are steps you can take to prevent, slow or stop its progress. Eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly can help slow or stop the loss of bone mass and help prevent fractures.
  • About half of osteoporosis-related repeat fractures can be prevented with appropriate treatment.
  • A bone density test is the best way to diagnose osteoporosis and determine a treatment plan. If your T-score is-2.5 or lower, indicating that you have osteoporosis, or if you have other significant risk factors for breaking a bone, talk to your healthcare provider about starting an osteoporosis treatment plan that includes taking an osteoporosis medicine.
  • In choosing an osteoporosis medication, be sure to discuss the risks and benefits of all treatment options with your healthcare provider to determine which treatment plan is best for you.
  • In order for your medicine to work, it’s important to exercise regularly an make sure you get the recommended amount of calcium and vitamin D every day from food and supplements.
  • Once you start taking an osteoporosis medicine, your bone density test by central DXA should be repeated at least every two years to monitor its effects. After starting a new osteoporosis medicine, many healthcare providers will repeat a bone density test after one year.

When is Renting a Wheelchair Van Right for You?

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To Fill a Gap During Repairs
When you need to make repairs to your wheelchair accessible vehicle or wheelchair van it is more difficult for you than the average car owner. What do you do when you don’t have the vehicle? Most of us don’t have a second wheelchair van we can use. When the repair is unexpected or more serious than anticipated, how do you manage? Do you cancel and reschedule all your doctors’ visits and planned activities for you and the people you care for? No! Simply make arrangements for a rental van so you can get yours repaired and still go on with your life.

To Accommodate a Visitor Using a Wheelchair
Are you or a wheelchair user you know flying into our area and need to have access to a wheelchair van rental? Would you like to have a grandmother or grandfather or other wheelchair-using relative come and spend some time with you and your family? A wheelchair van rental can give the freedom to come and stay without unnecessary barriers to family fun and mobility.

To Bring a Loved One Out From a Care Facility
For those in a nursing facility for an extended time-whether that is for a week, month or years-and those of us that care for them-visits and outings are critical for keeping spirits up and connections alive. A wheelchair van rental can make these outings better for everyone.

Wheelchair vans are much easier to use and enable most of us to handle getting someone in and out of the vehicle easily and without risk of injury or inconvenience.

Ease of use makes us all more likely to set aside the time and know that we can have a successful outing without the struggle of getting into and out of vehicles that are not wheelchair accessible

To Try a Wheelchair Van Before You Buy One
Buying a wheelchair van is a big decision and requires considerable care in making sure that the vehicle you choose will work for your particular situation. While all wheelchair vans have similarities, the differences are significant. The differences in height, width and shape may not seem like much to some. However, when you are in a wheelchair and have special equipment or physical limitations to accommodate, a couple of inches on one side or the other can be the key to complete happiness with your wheelchair van.

Maybe you think a wheelchair van would help your life but you have not been able to justify the expense. Sometimes trying it out can help you to feel that you are making the right decision. Maybe you will find that a wheelchair van is not right for you because of the fit, your family size or the conditions you drive in. Regardless, renting a wheelchair van can help you to assess that far better than a simple test drive.

When Your Disability is Only Temporary
Access to a wheelchair van can be a lifesaver when you are recovering from an injury or medical procedure that forces you to use a wheelchair for a limited period of time. Whether you have had surgery, or have suffered a broken bone or other injury, even an illness that limits your mobility, having to be in a wheelchair is not easy. Wheelchair van rentals can ensure that this temporary problem does not keep you restricted in your ability to make the most of the situation.

Having a wheelchair van rental accessible during your recovery means that the van is there when you need it. When you want to go for a ride, visit a friend or run to the store…

Using public transportation or medical transportations services limits your convenience and easy access to mobility

When you have recovered and no longer need the vehicle, simply return it to us and go on with your recovery and normal life.

For Doctor’s Visits and Medical Transportation
For the occasional doctor’s visit, using a transportation service may be a reasonable choice. However, when you are going through periods of multiple visits, testing, etc over several days or weeks or have a condition that requires regular, frequent appointments, the convenience of a wheelchair accessible van rental cannot be beat. Financially it will also work out to be less expensive in many situations.

When medical visits have got you running ragged, take some of the load off with a wheelchair van rental scheduled around your needs with the built in flexibility that comes with having it dedicated to you.

Do you want to take a detour on the way home from the doctor? Go out to lunch or do a little shopping? This is the kind of convenience that wheelchair accessible van rentals can provide.

For Special Occasions and Outings
Don’t let access to convenient wheelchair van transportation keep you from bringing your wheelchair-using loved ones to special events like weddings, birthdays, retirements and other “can’t miss” occasions. Wheelchair accessible van rentals enable you or that special person to attend significant occasions in the most convenient, comfortable and affordable manner possible.

For Road Trips and Vacations
Many people take rental wheelchair vans on long trips and vacations. Often, the wheelchair van or handicapped van they have is not large enough or dependable enough for their needs. Even with the excess mileage charges, the overall rental cost can fit into the vacation budget.

Huntington’s Disease Awareness

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What is Huntington’s Disease?
Huntington’s disease (HD) is an inherited brain disorder that results in the progressive loss of both mental faculties and physical control. Symptoms usually appear between the ages of 30 to 50, and worsen over a 10 to 25 year period. Ultimately, the weakened individual succumbs to pneumonia, heart failure or other complication.

Everyone has the HD gene but it is those individuals that inherit the expansion of the gene who will develop HD and perhaps pass it onto each of their children.

Presently, there is no cure. Although medications can relieve some symptoms, research has yet to find a means of slowing the deadly progression of HD.

Current estimates are that 1 in every 10,000 Americans has HD and more than 250,000 others are at-risk of having inherited it from a parent. Once thought a rare disease, HD is now considered one of the more common hereditary diseases.

Every person who inherits the expanded HD gene will eventually develop the disease.
Over time, HD affects the individual’s ability to reason, walk and speak

Symptoms Include:

  • Personality changes, mood swings and depression
  • Forgetfulness and impaired judgment
  • Unsteady gait and involuntary movements
  • Slurred speech and difficulty in swallowing

The Scope of HD
Approximately 30,000 Americans have HD, but the devastating effects of the disease touch many more. Within a family, multiple generations may have inherited the disease. Those at-risk may experience tremendous stress from the uncertainty and sense of responsibility. In the community, lack of knowledge about HD may keep friends and neighbors from offering social and emotional support to the family, fostering unnecessary isolation. The Huntington’s Disease

Society of America (HDSA) has a nationwide network that provides support and referrals for individuals with HD and their families.

Genetic Testing for HD
Individuals can be tested for the gene that causes HD. The test may be used to confirm a diagnosis of HD, but may also be used as a predictive test before symptoms arise. Some individuals at-risk for HD feel that it is important to know whether they carry the gene. Others ultimately choose not to be tested. While the actual procedure is simple, the decision to have the test is not. HDSA recommends that persons wishing to undergo presymptomatic testing for HD do so at one of our HDSA Centers of Excellence, or at a testing center with specific training in working with HD. A list of these testing centers is available from HDSA

HD affects both sexes and all races and ethnic groups around the world.
The Decision to test is highly personal and should never be rushed or forced.

Who is At-Risk?
Every child of a parent with HD has a  50/50 chance of inheriting the expanded gene that causes the disease. If the child has not inherited this expanded gene, he or she will never develop the disease and cannot pass it on to their children.

Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA)
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) protects people from discrimination by health insurers and employers on the basis of their DNA information. This federal law also enables individuals to take part in research studies without fear that their DNA information might be used against them by health insurers or in the workplace.

However, GINA protections do not extend to long term care, disability or life insurance policies. Anyone contemplating testing should first consider adding one or more of these types of policies before starting the testing process.

Advocacy
HDSA advocacy works to advance legislation and policy to improve the lives of HD families by raising awareness about HD in the U.S. Congress, by promoting legislation, policy and regulations that would help individuals in the HD community, by educating Federal agencies about HD, and by partnering and collaborating with national organizations that have common goals. Learn more at www.hdsa.org/advocacy.

Join us in the fight against HD
YOU can help HDSA in our efforts to end HD and provide resources for those who must face this disease daily. Both funds and volunteers are needed. Contact the HDSA National Office to find out how YOU can help.

HD does not skip generations; if one does not inherit the expanded gene, one cannot pass it on

An End To HD?
In 1993, researchers identified the gene that causes HD. Since then, research has moved quickly towards developing treatments and, ultimately, a cure. HDSA supports the goals of clinical and basic research at leading research facilities globally.

Clinical and observational trials are an important way you can help to sustain the momentum of HD research and move potential new therapies through the approval process. Visit the Research section of the HDSA website for more information and to find a trial in your area. There are opportunities for all HD family members – gene positive, at-risk, gene negative, and caregivers – to participate.

About HDSA
The Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) is the largest 501(C)(3) non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to improving the lives of everyone affected by Huntington’s disease. Founded in 1968 by Marjorie Guthrie, wife of folk legend Woody Guthrie who lost his battle with HD, the Society works tirelessly to provide family services, education, advocacy and research to provide help for today, hope for tomorrow to the more than 30,000 people diagnosed with HD and the 250,000 at-risk in the United States.

Where to find help
You are not alone in facing HD. HDSA has developed a nationwide network that includes Chapters and Affiliates, HDSA Centers of Excellence, Support Groups, and Social Workers that are ready to assist you with referrals and resources in your area. To learn more, please visit www.hdsa.org or call 888-HDSA-506.

Research worldwide is working to unlock the mystery of HD and find a cure