A great story for your Friday... Justin Thompson, friend of the Reeve Foundation, is refusing to back down after a tragic accidental shooting less than one-year-ago changed his life forever. He has one of those infectious smiles. You can't help but to feel happy when you are around him.

I have had the pleasure of meeting Justin, a high school senior, several times; a recent NY Daily News story captures the heart and spirit in his and his family's optimism. Justin and his family have been helped greatly by a member of our Paralysis Resource Center Information Specialist team and he is now making great strides at the Reeve Foundation's NeuroRecovery Network at Kessler Rehabilitation Institute in West Orange, NJ.Read More

Turner Classic Movies will dedicate the month of October to exploring the ways people with disabilities have been portrayed in film. On behalf of Inclusion in the Arts, Lawrence Carter-Long will join TCM host Ben Mankiewicz for The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film.

The special month-long exploration will air Tuesdays in October, beginning Oct. 2 at 8 p.m. (ET). In a first for TCM, all films will be presented with both closed captioning and audio description (via secondary audio) for audience members with auditory and visual disabilities.Read More

New in the PRC Library…

It’s Not All in Your Head: Anxiety, Depression, Mood Swings, and Multiple Sclerosis. By Patricia Farrell, PhD New York: DemosHealth www.demoshealth.com Read More

When Jaci Rann Cohen speaks of her extraordinary mother, Sheila Rann, the emotion and passion in her voice, her eyes, her words suspend time. The conversation is transported to snapshots of an incredibly full life cruelly cut short by a spinal cord injury that left Sheila paralyzed from the neck down in her final too few years. A beautiful ballerina, worldly writer and generous grandmother, Sheila captivated all who met her. Jaci is her mother’s daughter, inspired by images and ideas, bringing energy and enthusiasm to every room she enters. She is the spark of a light that shines brightly on the lives of others, on causes that matter and on missions that make a needed difference. She is an advocate and a leader, a giver and a doer, a champion and a friend.Read More

This is from Neurology Reviews:

Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and cognitive impairment may benefit from increasing their cognitive reserve and from rehabilitation techniques such as self-generated learning, spaced learning, and spaced retrieval, researchers reported at the Fourth Cooperative Meeting of the Consortium of MS Centers and Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in MS.Read More

Over the weekend, my parents told the story to family friends of a medical condition I had when I was four-years-old. At that moment I felt I was reliving it all over again; it was by far the scariest time of my life, and though I was so young, I still have the most vivid memories of it.

I could only imagine how Eric LeGrand, former Rutgers University football player injured on the gridiron, felt when he had to write his new book, BELIEVE, My Faith and the Tackle That Changed My Life, in which he does exactly that, recalling his spinal cord injury which happened almost two-years-ago (October 16, 2010) all over again. (BELIEVE doesn’t come out until September 25th, what would have also been Christopher Reeve’s 60th birthday, but I had the pleasure of reading it in advance.) Detail for detail, step for step, and the moments before and after, the minutes, hours, and days that surrounded his life-changing tackle, he recalls it all on paper in his biography. Read More

From CNN Health:

As the sun rose over France on August 13, 2011, Knut Olstad was looking forward to continuing his bicycle journey along the Tour de France route. But by the end of the day, the vacation had taken a terrible turn that would change his life.

The 46-year-old financial consultant from Norway doesn't remember much about the accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down. He was shown pictures of himself lying on the ground with a broken back after being catapulted from his bike while trying to avoid a collision with a car.Read More

In a 2009 study published by the Reeve Foundation, it was determined that out of the nearly 1.3 million Americans living with spinal cord injuries, 57,000 of those were due to being victims of violence. A recent Washington Post article outlines the prevalence of men in wheelchair in D.C. due to gun violence. Here's part of the piece:Read More

Intensive, activity-based rehabilitation therapy can lead to significant functional improvements in patients with spinal cord injuries. New research, based on studies from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation NeuroRecovery Network (NRN), shows that recovery of walking and balance can occur even years after injury in people with incomplete spinal cord injury who participate in locomotor training. Read More

Help Washington State provide mentors and create programs for those affected by SCI. The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation and the Spinal Cord Injury Association of Washington are co-hosting the 2nd annual Walk & Roll fundraiser Saturday October 6, 2012 around Greenlake in Seattle. Read More