Lives Of Disabled People Research Articles

Optimal Sensor Deployment According to a New Approach for Target Tracking in Smart Homes

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) aims to ease the activities of daily lives for elderly or disabled people living in smart homes. In these systems, the assisting services are provided by use of the sensors that detect the location of inhabitants. Even though the cost and performance efficiencies of sensor networks depend directly on the number of the deployed sensors as well as the approaches that are employed to track the location of inhabitants, these factors are separately considered in research studies. In this paper, we propose an approach to track a target in smart homes. We present a new Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model that i. optimizes the number of the deployed sensors according to our proposed target tracking approach, ii. determines the placement of sensors in the network while considering the layout of the Region of Interest (RoI), iii. proposes appropriate settings for the sensors' field of view and their orientation, and, iv. deploys sensors according to the satisfaction of a reliability level in the network. In order to validate the proposed model and show its applicability, we use two sets of data, including real data gathered from a living lab and randomly generated data, as well as a test scenario. We also present a user interface that employs the concepts, which are presented in this research. The interface helps to easily monitor the location, energy consumption and well-being factors of a target in an AAL environment.

AHEAD: Automatic Holistic Energy-Aware Design Methodology for MLP Neural Network Hardware Generation in Proactive BMI Edge Devices

The prediction of a high-level cognitive function based on a proactive brain–machine interface (BMI) control edge device is an emerging technology for improving the quality of life for disabled people. However, maintaining the stability of multiunit neural recordings is made difficult by the nonstationary nature of neurons and can affect the overall performance of proactive BMI control. Thus, it requires regular recalibration to retrain a neural network decoder for proactive control. However, retraining may lead to changes in the network parameters, such as the network topology. In terms of the hardware implementation of the neural decoder for real-time and low-power processing, it takes time to modify or redesign the hardware accelerator. Consequently, handling the engineering change of the low-power hardware design requires substantial human resources and time. To address this design challenge, this work proposes AHEAD: an automatic holistic energy-aware design methodology for multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network hardware generation in proactive BMI edge devices. By taking a holistic analysis of the proactive BMI design flow, the approach makes judicious use of the intelligent bit-width identification (BWID) and configurable hardware generation, which autonomously integrate to generate the low-power hardware decoder. The proposed AHEAD methodology begins with the trained MLP parameters and golden datasets and produces an efficient hardware design in terms of performance, power, and area (PPA) with the least loss of accuracy. The results show that the proposed methodology is up to a 4X faster in performance, 3X lower in terms of power consumption, and achieves a 5X reduction in area resources, with exact accuracy, compared to floating-point and half-floating-point design on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), which makes it a promising design methodology for proactive BMI edge devices.

The weight of history: child protection and parenting with a disability in 20th Century Iceland

ABSTRACT This contribution focuses on four periods in Iceland, from the early twentieth century until the time of writing, in order to document and analyse the struggles of people with intellectual disabilities to marry, have a family and maintain custody of their children. Each period is linked to specific pieces of legislation that governed the bodies and lives of disabled people and reflected larger social norms concerning issues of family life and parenthood. An emphasis is placed upon the perspective of contemporary critical disability studies in analysing the historical development of this struggle, and the voices of those who experienced this struggle first-hand, drawn from a number of research projects conducted in Iceland. Our main contention is that the weight of history still comes to bear upon matters of parenting and family life, even in the most recent shift toward a human rights approach to disability. There remains a strong socio-cultural resistance toward parenting with an intellectual disability, rooted in the ideology of early twentieth-century eugenics. Our goal is to document the development of these phases throughout the twentieth century in Iceland in order to illustrate how older ideas and prejudices still inform contemporary child protection practices concerning parents with disabilities.

Beyond the Quest for the Cure: Forging Disability-Sensitive Jewish Bioethics

While Jewish bioethicists frequently grapple with questions about the permissibility of gene therapies in a Jewish context, this article critiques the way in which scientific, religious, and popular reflection about genetic intervention designed to eliminate disability frequently sidelines the objections of specific disability communities and marginalizes their epistemic knowledge about disability experience. The author argues that decisions about genetic intervention and similar curative technologies must not go forward without a substantive way to take seriously the critiques raised by certain disability communities. Probing classical Jewish sources that recount rabbinic resistance to Roman medical prowess, the article illuminates how curative technology can become an expression of power and domination. The author's disability-sensitive reading of these texts underscores the bodily sovereignty of disabled people, affirming the significance of disabled people's lives without regard to conventional markers of productivity and worth, cherishing the embodied presence of disability in the world.

Wasted lives in scapegoat Britain: overlaps and departures between migration studies and disability studies

The focus of this paper is to consider how disability studies and migration studies may be brought into further conversation with one another. While their experiences overlap and intersect in many ways, the lives of disabled people and migrants have rarely been considered together and this is an omission we address through a discussion on points of intersection and departure between migration studies and disability studies. We argue that migrants and disabled people are among the most marginalised individuals today whilst a Global North neoliberal rhetoric has pushed them further to the margins. We draw on Bauman’s theorisation of ‘wasted lives’ to bring disability studies and migration studies in dialogue with one another. Through this analysis, we highlight how bringing both disciplines together may help to inform debates focused on social justice and rights to dignity for some of world’s most marginalised communities.

Adverse Effects of Social Security on Disabled People and Their Families in the UK: Iatrogenic Outcomes of Quasi-Clinical Administration

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis many countries embarked on a prolonged period of public sector ‘austerity’ which for some included seeking dramatic reductions in social security spending. It is in this context that the research investigates the negative impacts of interactions with the UK disability benefits system on the lives of disabled people. The research uses in-depth semi-structured interviews and a focus group to study the experiences of 49 people who either had an impairment or chronic health concern and/or were family carers for an adult or child with these concerns. The analysis identified four aggregate dimensions evidenced by the transcript data: harmful health and well-being consequences, negative financial and resource impacts, perverse employment effects and wider social disability concerns. These dimensions highlight how interactions with ‘social security’ policy in the contemporary context can have harmful, iatrogenic consequences for disabled people and their families.

Socio-psychological barriers in higher inclusive education

Higher education is one of the conditions of independent life for disabled people, a condition of their social and labor rehabilitation. Health problems are not the only serious obstacles to vocational education. No less important are the barriers in the educational environment of the University and barriers in relationships with others. It is noted that most of the difficulties in the learning process of students with disabilities are associated with their psychological characteristics - the presence of negative experiences and attitudes, the level of self-esteem, the features of life orientations. Depending on the severity of psychological characteristics, different variants of the relationship of students with disabilities with other students are possible: from full integration to disintegration and opposition behavior. It was suggested that the nature of the relationship and especially value-semantic readiness for vocational education in higher inclusive education can largely determine the prospects of personal and professional development of students with disabilities. An empirical study of peculiarities of value orientations of students with disabilities (N = 50) and students without disabilities (N = 50) was conducted using the technique of G. N. Kuznetsova on the General self-identity, self-esteem scale of Rosenberg and test of life-meaningful orientations D. A. Leontiev.

Comparative analysis of two-group supervised classification algorithms in the study of P300-based brain-computer interface

The main goal of the paper is to perform a comparative accuracy analysis of the two-group classification of EEG data collected during the P300-based brain-computer interface tests. The brain-computer interface is a technology that allows establishing communication between a human brain and external devices. BCIs may be applied in medicine to improve the life of disabled people and as well for entertainment. The P300 is an event-related potential (ERP) appearing about 300 ms after the occurrence of the stimulus of visual, auditory or sensory nature. It is based on the phenomenon observed in anticipation for a target event among non-target events. The 21-channel 201 Mitsar amplifier was used during the experiment to store EEG data from seven electrodes placed on the dedicated cap. The study was conducted on a group of five persons using P300 scenario available in OpenVibe software. The experiment was based on three steps the classifier learning process, comparison and averaging of the obtained result and the final test of the classifier. The comparative analysis was performed with the application of two supervised classification methods: Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP). The preliminary data analysis, extraction and feature selection was performed prior to the classification.

Thinking OutsideTheBox - Designing Smart Things with Autistic Children

ABSTRACTThis article offers a synopsis of and a critical reflection on the research project OutsideTheBox Rethinking Assistive Technology with Autistic Children. The aim of the 3-year project was to develop digital technology that would holistically respond to the complex life-worlds of autistic children, affording positive experiences that they could share with others. Through a series of long-term participatory design processes, smart objects were developed individually with nine children employing a wide range of different methods (e.g., Co-operative Inquiry, Future Workshops, Fictional Inquiry, Magic Workshops, Drama and Making & Digital Fabrication). In this article are presented the cases of all children worked with and tie them together by a critical reflection across them. The discussion offers insights along three main themes: we a) substantiate the argument for a theoretical shift in conceptualizing roles for technology in the lives of disabled people, b) discuss our methodological contributions in participatory design processes and c) propose alternative, participatory approaches to evaluate outcomes.

„Możesz kląć, możesz płakać, ale wstań i idź dalej”… Ośrodki rehabilitacyjne dla osób niepełnosprawnych po polio w Polsce po II wojnie światowej jako przestrzeń życia codziennego

„You can curse, you can cry, but get up and go on...”Rehabilitation centres for people with disabilities resulting from polio in Poland after World War II as an everyday life space The article focuses on selected issues of everyday life of disabled people with polio-related impairments who were treated and rehabilitated in closed rehabilitation facilities. A network of such institutions was established in Poland as a response to polio epidemics outbreak in the early 1950s. The article analyzes the period between the early 1950s and late 1960s. The text highlights the specificity of daily life at these facilities. In particular, I consider interpersonal relations among members of these various communities. In terms of source material, the study is based primarily on autobiographical oral histories collected and recorded by the author. Keywords: history of disability, Poland, rehabilitation, healthcare facilities, 1945–1989

Care program for disability and social vulnerability of The Foundation of Disability Attention - Sant Joan de Déu (FAD-SJD)

Introduction : Population aging and high prevalence of chronic diseases cause high prevalence of patients at home with functional and cognitive disabilities. The support to disability requires care teams addressed to recovery the essential activities of daily-life, improve autonomy and fully exercise citizenship rights. The support needs related to disability at home are partially covered by the public resources at present available in Spain, and also by frequent limitation of socio-family support network. On the other hand, in our society there is a high prevalence of people in situations of social vulnerability related mainly to the lack of training and job opportunities. The Foundation of Disability Attention - Sant Joan de Deu (FAD-SJD) linked to the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios, was created with two main objectives: to provide cares to disabled patients, and give support to people in situation of social vulnerability. Brief description of the practice change implemented: Since 2012, FAD-SJD proposes a pattern of care, based on nursing supervision of home care to disability, coordinated with public health care and social resources. Objectives : To provide the necessary support to disabled people based on the values of hospitality, respect, quality, responsibility and spirituality. To reinsert people in situation of social vulnerability, by means formation and job opportunities as caregivers of disabled people. Targeted population and stakeholders : Patients: Disabled people with criteria of support needs. Target population of reintegration: People in situation of social vulnerability, reversible by means of specific training and labor reintegration. Stakeholders: Sanitary and social institutions, both public and private, foundations dedicated to social vulnerability. Highlights (innovation, Impact and outcomes): Innovation: a) Care pattern providing support professionals to disability, coordinated and supervised by a nurse, according to the model of case management; b) Training program for disability care addressed to people in situation of social vulnerability, selected by a social entity (Caritas); c) Program of labor reintegration program through the FAD-SJD job offers. Impact: a) Improvement of the quality of life of disabled people; b) Reduction of social exclusion of vulnerable people. Results: Between January and October 2016, a total of 465 disabled patients received care: 121 at-home patients; 138 people living in religious communities; and 200 in mental health. The mean age of people was 77’4 years, 67’2% were women, the most common pathologies were dementia, organic failure, metabolic disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. The main interventions were support to daily and instrumental activities, and care in mental health. The most common causes of cancellation of care program were patient's death and economic difficulties. During this period of time, 161 persons were formed and 79 achieved their labor reintegration. Comments on sustainability : The funding comes from collaboration agreements with social entities and University (Caritas, SJD Teaching Campus, SJD Social Work, grants, ...), and the contribution of disabled patients. Comments on the transferability : We consider that the project is reproducible in other environments. Conclusions and lessons learned : This model of care provides a quality support to the disability and allows the labor reintegration of vulnerable people.

Features Selection and Pattern Classification of Electroencephalography Motor Imagery Tasks of Right Hand

This study presentsa Brain Computer Interface (BCI) approach to detect the motor intents of the disabled people with right hand amputation. Electroencephalography (EEG) Motor Imagery (MI)-based Brain Computer Interface (BCI) systems have been recently used to improve the quality of life of disabled people. However, to naturally trigger particular applications (i.e., upper limb prostheses), independent BCIs appeal further paradigms to involve realistic motor imagery tasks. This study proposes an approach to classifying imagined hand gesture tasks, including the water glass gesture and the index pointer gesture of the right hand using OPENBCI as a consumer-grade EEG acquisition device. For three subjects, the data recorded by OPENBCI were sampled with a sampling rate of 250 Hz. The Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance (MRMR) technique was implemented as a feature selection method along with the Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm for classification. By obtaining a maximum classification accuracy of 91.7%, the results showed the feasibility of such Brain Computer Interface systems to detect different motor imagery tasks for the right hand. Consequently, upper limb prostheses could be manipulated using the intended motor imagery tasks.

Survey on the quality of life of disabled people in Shanghai Jing′an district and analysis of influencing factors

Objective To survey the quality of life of disabled people in Shanghai Jing′an district and to analyze the influencing factors. Methods A face-to-face interview was conducted among 1 831 disabled people from 5 communities of Jing′an district between September 2015 and January 2016. The quality of life was evaluated with Modified Barthel Index (MBI), 12-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ). Results There were 941 males and 870 females among 1 815 qualified participants. There were 433 cases of visual disability (23.86%), 222 cases of hearing disability (12.23%), 20 cases of language disability(1.10%), 742 cases of limb disability (40.88%), 169 cases of intelligent disability (9.31%), 198 cases of mental disability (10.91%) and 31 cases (1.71%)of multiple disabilities. The SF-12 showed that the mean scores of both physical aspect and mental aspect were 50.0±10.0. Multiple linear regression showed showed that the low self-care ability of daily life (β=0.24, P=0.00), depression (β=-9.65, P=0.00) and high serum lipids (β=-2.36, P=0.02) were associated with the quality of life. Conclusion The study indicates that the quality of life of the disabled people in Jing′ an district is generally low, which is affected by various factors. Key words: Disabled persons; Health status; Quality of life; Questionnaires

The Natural Environment in the Daily Life of Disabled People in the Volga region (XIX century)

The Natural Environment in the Daily Life of Disabled People in the Volga region (XIX century)

BRIDGE - Behavioural reaching interfaces during daily antigravity activities through upper limb exoskeleton: Preliminary results.

People with neuromuscular diseases such as muscular dystrophy experience a distributed and evolutive weakness in the whole body. Recent technological developments have changed the daily life of disabled people strongly improving the perceived quality of life, mostly concentrating on powered wheelchairs, so to assure autonomous mobility and respiratory assistance, essential for survival. The key concept of the BRIDGE project is to contrast the everyday experience of losing functions by providing them of a system able to exploit the best their own residual capabilities in arm movements so to keep them functional and autonomous as much as possible. BRIDGE is composed by a light, wearable and powered five degrees of freedom upper limb exoskeleton under the direct control of the user through a joystick or gaze control. An inverse kinematic model allows to determine joints position so to track patient desired hand position. BRIDGE prototype has been successfully tested in simulation environment, and by a small group of healthy volunteers. Preliminary results show a good tracking performance of the implemented control scheme. The interaction procedure was easy to understand, and the interaction with the system was successful.

Застосування 3D-технологій в інклюзивному середовищі

The fast development of rapid prototyping technology has allowed to significantly simplify life for disabled people with visual impairments. The use of 3D printing in the manufacture of products for the blind greatly expands the ways of their communication in society, increases the level of inclusive education by ensuring equal access to quality education for children with special needs. The article describes the most common methods of three-dimensional printing and briefly describes the basic principles of their work. There were considered materials that are used most commonly in the manufacture of products for the blind by these methods, their advantages and disadvantages. It this work, there is also presented the cause-effect diagram of Braille 3D printing for assessing the impact of technological factors on the quality of the information reproduction process for blind people. Ensuring the consistently high level of inclusive and proper quality of print products for the blind is always an urgent and priority aspect of the work of most institutions and printing industry organizations, in the implementation of which each of them faces a number of issues related to the selection of optimal parameters of technological operations, equipment characteristics and properties of materials. The extension of the inclusive education process is not only a reflection of time, but also represents another step towards ensuring the full realization of the rights of people with special needs for quality education. Facilitates the solving of such a task as the large-scale introduction of technology of three-dimensional printing in the production of products for the blind. Therefore, it is expedient to carry out further research of materials and their properties, which are used in 3D printing technologies, which will allow to recreate the corresponding geometric parameters of relief-dot Braille images that are difficult to achieve in traditional printing methods.

Social Work and Disability, Peter Simcock and Rhoda Castle

As Simcock and Castle note, Mike Oliver came to the conclusion that ‘We can probably now announce the death of social work at least in relationship to its involvement in the lives of disabled people’ (cited at p. 140) thirty years after he developed the social model of disability in his ground-breaking book, Social Work with Disabled People (1983). At the time and as a newly appointed lecturer in disability studies teaching on qualifying social work programmes, this declaration of the demise of social work with disabled people was dispiriting. Perhaps more importantly, it felt incongruent with the lived experience of the many disabled people whose lives were significantly affected by social work interventions and the great passion of many practitioners and academics about the potential of social work to challenge disablism and work in alliance with disabled people. To be sure, as this timely and helpful contribution from Peter Simcock and Rhoda Castle acknowledges, social work has often failed disabled people. Too many disabled people are inappropriately living in institutions rather than their communities (James et al., 2016), experience poorer outcomes across the life course (DWP, 2015) and are disproportionally affected by austerity (Duffy, 2014). Moreover, social work, as a profession and discipline, has frequently failed to make a convincingly inspiring case for what social work can offer disabled people. This engaging practical text which is firmly grounded in disability studies seeks, with great success in my view, to address these failures.

"Troubled Walking: Storying the In-Between"

"Troubled Walking:Storying the In-Between" Eliza Chandler (bio) I was walking home from school one night on a busy street in downtown Toronto. As I was crossing the street, my walking pace—perhaps slow and somewhat shaky—synched up with another's. Previously apart, we were now communicating with each other through our gaits, swinging arms, and sideways looks across the sidewalk. We began to walk together. During the block or two that we walked together, our paths often forked as we independently negotiated the objects and other bodies that prevented us from walking a straight line. But we always came back together. In the midst of all others, this coming back together was, to me, a clear indication that we desired to be together … if only for a couple of blocks. Soon after we began this sidewalk dance of departures from and arrivals to one another, the man made an observation, which came in the form of a question. He asked, "You have trouble walking?" Undeniably, I walk differently. I suspect this difference can be seen, heard, or felt by most people whom I walk with or amongst. And sometimes this different walk does give me trouble: the drag of my right toe can get caught up in sidewalk cracks causing me to fall down. But I do not necessarily experience walking as troubling. I could have interpreted his question in endlessly different ways. I could have, for example, met his interpretation of my walk as different with indignation or hostility, signaling that I interpreted his question as an indication that he was measuring my walk against a normative standard of walking and asking me to explain my deviation. Perhaps this was what he was asking. But I felt that he was kind and respectfully curious in his question, and, after all, I wanted us to stay together. So I answered, with a smile, "No, this is how I walk." [End Page 317] To which he replied, "Then why are you wearing high heeled boots?!" At this, we both erupted with laughter. Together the laughter continued down the block. It was true; I was wearing high-heeled boots. And although their heels weren't even that high, they caused my already dragging feet to drag a little more, increasing the possibility of dangerously tripping up in the cracks. After we laughed together for a few moments, he turned down a different street … and then we were apart. As what Eli Clare calls a noticeably disabled 'walkie' (Exile and Pride 128) frequently traversing the streets of my city, Toronto, I have a strong sense of how ableist logic dominates and circulates. This sense comes from being, or the ever-present possibility of being, stared at, avoided, or commented on when I am in almost every crevice of public culture. This sense also comes from my knowledge that nearly every noticeably disabled person whom I know shares similar experiences. My sense that ableism floods dominant culture is further secured every time that I notice stairs to a building without an accompanying ramp or elevator, with every heavy door that I struggle to open, and every time that I hear words like 'crazy' or 'lame' appear lazily in our nomenclature. As someone working in the discipline of disability studies, I also have a strong sense of how ableist logic discursively produces disability in such a fashion that discrimination against disabled people makes "sense"; it is collectively tolerated and collectively responded to with apathy, if acknowledged at all (Titchkosky, Reading and Writing Disability Differently 9–11). Ableism constructs the "sensibility" of my culture within which ableist gestures toward, enactments of, and responses to disability seem benign. In so many ways, I sense how our world neither values nor desires the "difference that disability makes" (Michalko 56). As a disabled person who embodies disability with a mixture of pride and shame,1 and who experiences disability as communally binding, culturally important, and a desired way of living, I know that there are other ways of storying disability. Lives of disabled people are not only made up of stories flecked with discrimination, violence, and fear, in which disability is culturally produced as nothing more...

Effect of Psychotherapy on the Welfare of the Elderly and Disabled People Living in Institutions (Based on the Research in Belgorod Region)

The article presents the results of the survey, conducted in 2015 in five social institutions for elderly and people with disabilities in Belgorod region. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of psychotherapy on the welfare of institutionalized elderly and disabled people. The research included the survey of the administration and staff of the institutions for elderly (N=95), as well as the elderly patients themselves (N = 177). The necessity of a purposeful psychotherapeutic work with a contingent of the residential care is discussed in order to reduce the risk of depression and different kinds of dementia.

Inclusion in Singapore: a social model analysis of disability policy

A rhetoric of inclusion and increased social spending within a global context of austerity cuts has dominated disability policies in Singapore today. However, there is a lack of academic works that take a critical disability studies view towards the analysis of disability in Singapore. This work aims to address this gap by adopting a critical social model-led analysis of disability policies in Singapore. The article examines the rhetoric of inclusion, how disability is defined and its implementation through various policies in Singapore. It will examine the underpinnings of disability in Singapore today and its impact on the lives of disabled people.