On today's episode of the Ramp. It. Up! Podcast I am recapping my recent trip to Las Vegas to attend the United Spinal Association's Strong Wheeled Together Conference.
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On today's episode of the Ramp. It. Up! Podcast I am recapping my recent trip to Las Vegas to attend the United Spinal Association's Strong Wheeled Together Conference.
Ramp. It. Up!
Stay Connected to the Podcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ramp.it.up.podcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZoeOnWheelz/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZAnH8I6sGEf7SJ9OKw8dEA
Email: rampituppodcast@gmail.com
On this episode of the Ramp. It. Up! Podcast we are chatting with Lesly St. Louis. October is Disability Employment Awareness Month, and Lesly, a fellow wheelchair user, is the Director of the Pathways to Employment program at the United Spinal Association.
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Get To Know Our Guest
Lesly St. Louis is grateful to have the opportunity to facilitate people with disabilities obtaining gainful employment, and to replace fear and prejudice against people with disabilities with mutual understanding. Having continuously encountered barriers from employers, he sees the common challenges individuals with disabilities have to overcome are not their disabilities, but the stigma surrounding them. He hopes that creating employment opportunities will increase confidence within these individuals and inspire them to conquer more challenges and achieve even higher levels of success. Lesly was born with Spina Bifida, diagnosed with the most severe form called myelomeningocele, and is a wheelchair user. He holds a Master’s degree from Long Island University, C.W. Post, and regularly participates in adaptive sports. Through his involvement in adaptive sports, and in his professional life, he strives to advocate for individuals with disabilities and restore dignity through productivity.
Click Here to register for Employment Empowerment Series: Navigating Employment with a Disability
Website: https://unitedspinal.org/pathways-to-employment/
Email: lstlouis@unitedspinal.org
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On this episode of the Ramp. It. Up! Podcast, Ian Ruder joins the show for SCI Awareness Month.
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Get To Know Our Guests
Ian Ruder is the Editor-in-Chief of New Mobility, the longest-running, most-trusted magazine and web site for active wheelchair users (newmobility.com). A quadriplegic himself, Ruder joined the New Mobility team in 2011 when the magazine was purchased by United Spinal Association, a non-profit focused on mobility-related disability. Prior to working for New Mobility, he worked as a freelance journalist in the Pacific Northwest. When he is not working to promote authentic voices and stories from the disability community, he can likely be found enjoying the culinary delights in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, or rooting for his San Francisco Giants.
About: https://newmobility.com/author/iruder/
Website: https://newmobility.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newmobilitymag
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NewMobilityMag
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Welcome back for another episode of the Ramp. It. Up! Podcast. In the month of September we are observing Spinal Cord Injury Awareness month. My guest for this episode is attorney, advocate, and father, Joshua Basile. He shares how he dedicated his life to advocacy after acquiring his SCI.
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Get To Know Our Guests
Meet Josh Basile a C4-5 quadriplegic, power wheelchair user, disability rights advocate, trial attorney, inventor, and proud father. In 2004 at the age of 18, Josh was paralyzed below the shoulders in a beach accident. Soon after he formed the Determined2Heal Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, to empower newly injured families. Josh created the world's largest paralysis video mentoring network through SPINALpedia.com with 30,000 videos searchable by physical functionality. As a medical malpractice lawyer and disabilities rights advocate, Josh serves persons with disabilities both in the courtroom and through policy initiatives. As a community leader and changemaker, Josh works tirelessly to improve the quality of life the people with disabilities and to continuously break down existing barriers to access and inclusion, independent living, transportation, employment, and web accessibility.
Website: https://spinalpedia.com/
https://www.determined2heal.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spinalpedia/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SPINALpedia
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Welcome back for another episode of the Ramp. It. Up! Podcast. In the month of June we celebrate Father’s Day and men’s mental health, so today’s episode is dedicated to the gentleman! Author, podcast host, educator and motivational speaker, Coach David Cooks joins us to share about his life experiences. At the age of 15, a spinal aneurysm rudely interrupted his high school basketball aspirations. Not allowing that to slow him down, David dedicated his life to pursuing his education, as insisted by his parents, but also his passion for basketball. Tune in to find out how he went from being paralyzed to finding his purpose.
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Get to Know our Guest
David Cooks, a T-6 paraplegic, is a Speaker, a Podcast Host, a Certified Business Coach and an award -winning Author of the book “Getting Undressed – From Paralysis to Purpose”. In his book, David encourages the reader to keep moving forward regardless of life’s challenges and to put Purpose into action by helping others. David suffered a spinal aneurysm at the age of 15. Click here for more.
Website: davidcooksspeaks.com
Podcast: paralysis2purpose.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/david-cooksspeaks-mba-20001210/
Linktree: www.linktr.ee/dcespeaks
Resources
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On today's episode of the Ramp. It. Up! Podcast, Dr. David W. McMillan joins me again. On his last visit we talked about nutrition and eating right during the holidays (Season 1 Episode 13: What's on your plate?). This time around we talk about Hurricane season and emergency preparedness. Dr. David is a part of the Subtropical Climate & Health Hub (STiCHH), a collective of researchers sharing reliable information about (sub)tropical climate and health, with an emphasis on sub—or marginalized—populations. We discuss steps to prepare for the season, local resources and ways to have a safe season.
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In 2010 David was involved in a community research project involving exercise and people with SCI. This experience set David on a trajectory, and he is now a clinical researcher using metabolic science to learn about SCI and identify low-tech / low-cost strategies for targeting obesity in people with SCI. David earned his Bachelors and Masters in Exercise Science and his Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology.His dissertation pertained to the role of the autonomic nervous system in the absorption, trafficking, and fates of dietary fat. He is now refocusing his efforts to align with regional demands and affordances—aiming at the disproportionate risks and rewards posed by the Tropical Atlantic on Patients with SCI. Regarding risks, he studies the vulnerabilities of Patients with SCI to climate hazards in the form of flooding, heat, and hurricanes.
Website: http://mkysml.com/
https://subtropclimatehealthhub.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @DrDWMcMillan
Resources
Click the link below to register for the United Spinal Association's TechTalks
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We are back with another episode of The Ramp. It. Up! Podcast. On today's episode we are closing out the month of May with some updates and good news for the wheelchair user community.
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GAAD May 18,2023
CMS Seat Elevation
FDA Approves Neuralink
AI Helps Paralyzed Man
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HandiCup
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Welcome back for another episode of the Ramp. It. Up! Podcast. On this episode I am joined by Fouzan Alam and Bliss Chapman from Neuralink, a neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk. Neuralink is currently developing implantable brain–computer interfaces: building devices now that have the potential to help people with paralysis. Fouzan is a project manager on their clinical team and Bliss is a software engineer on the brain-computer interfaces team. We discuss where the company is in the process, how it will impact the SCI community, and what the future of brain-computer interface holds.
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Get To Know Our Guests:
Fouzan is a biomedical engineer and ex-doctor working on technologies that improve people’s lives and lower the barriers for access to care. His previous work includes an implantable sensor startup, a new brain scanning modality based on TMS and EEG, and low-cost high-performance spinal fusion implants. He is currently at Neuralink, on clinical data and operations. On the side, he is an angel investor, advises frontier-tech startups, and runs a small product design studio.
Bliss is a lead software engineer at Neuralink. He gets very excited about anything related to 1) his new puppy and 2) how to turn brain signals into computer control. Before Neuralink, Bliss worked at Apple as a machine learning engineer in the Camera & Photos group with the explicit goal of building experiences that make his momma cry happy tears. Bliss grew up dancing classical ballet in Central Illinois where he was homeschooled alongside his 5 awesome siblings.
If you are part of the SCI/D community and wanted to join the Neuralink Patient Registry click the link below.
Website: https://neuralink.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/neuralink
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@neuralink
Resources:
Click the link below to register for the United Spinal Association's TechTalks
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On today's episode of The Ramp. It. Up! Podcast we are wrapping up Women’s History Month with a good friend of mine, Erin Taylor.
Get To Know Our Guest
For more than 15 years, Erin Taylor has dedicated herself to advocating for health equity and promoting wellness by helping eliminate barriers and health disparities for disabled people throughout Oregon. She does this by interweaving equity, inclusion, and accessibility throughout her work and being intentional in her commitment to diversifying awareness of the vast range of disability experiences and identities. Ensuring that disabled people's voices are heard, their intersectionality is acknowledged, and their needs are met is imperative in Taylor's work. Even though Taylor's roots are with people with intellectual disabilities, she does her current work through a cross-disability lens.
Taylor holds an M.A. in Disability Studies from City University New York (CUNY) and a B.A. in Communications Studies focusing on Community Health Education from Western Oregon University. She has built a strong foundation as a master trainer with expertise in creating accessible, universal, and inclusive materials for trainings, workshops, and curricula for Oregon Health and Science University's Oregon Office on Disability and Health and University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities.
During the pandemic, Taylor saw a need to bring education and awareness around disability because of the injustices she saw. She recognizes that the topic of disability is very complex, nuanced, and layered, so Taylor and her partner started AIM-4-Access (Accessibility and Inclusion Matters). Creating a business allows Taylor and her partner to hold space for these conversations in ways that will leave people understanding the 'why' you should care to make our world inclusive and accessible. This business also allows Taylor to bring her passion for health promotion back into her work.
Erin identifies as having non-apparent disabilities and is deeply involved and integrated with her peers from the local cross-disability, LGBTIA2S+, and social justice communities. In her free time, Taylor is a musician who enjoys photography and the beauty of the PNW. She enjoys kayaking, camping, hiking, and spending time at the coast with her partner and two dogs, Millie and Lilah.
Email: Taylorridler@aim-4-access.com
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On this episode of The Ramp. It. Up! Podcast, in honor of Women's History Month, I am joined by Jean L. Minkel, PT, ATP. We chat about her early years as a Physical Therapist, her influence on early assistive technology, and her crusade to effect insurance policy change.
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Ms. Minkel is a physical therapist and master clinician well recognized for her work in Assistive Technology. Jean has a passion for ensuring that people with a mobility disability have access to the products and services needed to support full participation in life.
Jean works directly with the disability community to identify unmet needs in product development, ableist practices in the therapy community and restrictive coverage policies which prevent access to the devices that meet the needs of the wheelchair user.
Jean is currently actively involved in a campaign to revise the highly restrictive Medicare coverage policy, used by many private insurers to deny coverage of wheelchairs and accessories needed to be fully mobile in routine environments, both in the home and the community.
Have you been denied for a new wheelchair or wheelchair function? Click the link below to share your story.
https://unitedspinal.org/share-your-wheelchair-denial-story/
Submit a Comment to CMS
Are you a wheelchair user? Medicare wants to hear from YOU! Take action by March 17, 2023.
We need to show Medicare that wheelchair users and people with disabilities strongly support this coverage and urge Medicare to go even further to ensure that all those who need access to these systems can get it. As you know, these systems are vital for wheelchair users to be able to:
CMS is currently accepting public comments through Friday, March 17 before they finalize their decision on coverage for power seat elevation systems. Please share your story and let Medicare know how you could or do benefit from these technologies. Submit your comment here
Click the link below to register for the United Spinal Association's TechTalks
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