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Research has the potential to be a powerful tool for the realisation of the rights of disabled people. However, antiquated research practices continue to marginalise disabled people by excluding them from research; inadequately remunerating them for participation in research; undertaking research that assumes difference; and not including their voice in the leadership design or implementation of research. This article builds on emancipatory, participatory and inclusive research methodologies to introduce a new human rights-based disability research methodology that presents a roadmap to overcome these problems and transform research into a means of rights realisation. It presents a protocol for the methodology that was created by the international Disability Human Rights Research Network. Finally, it explores many challenges that researchers may face when endeavouring to implement the methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Increasing evidence suggests that illnesses and injuries leading to restricted activity have adverse functional consequences, but whether the two components of restricted activity have comparable effects is unknown. We evaluated whether an illness/injury leading to bed rest represents a more potent exposure than one leading to cutting down on one's usual activities without bed rest.Methods: We prospectively evaluated 754 community-living persons, 70+ years. Telephone interviews were completed monthly for >15 years to assess disability in four basic, five instrumental, and four mobility activities and to ascertain exposure to illnesses/injuries leading to cut down activities and bed rest, respectively. For each of the three functional domains, transitions between no disability, mild disability, and severe disability were evaluated each month.Results: For each domain, cut down activities and bed rest were significantly associated with at least one transition. The associations were consistently stronger, however, for bed rest than for cut down activities. Bed rest was a particularly potent exposure for transitions from no disability to severe disability, with hazard ratios as high as 8.94 (95% CI, 5.69-14.1) for the mobility activities, and for all transitions from severe disability (representing recovery), with hazard ratios as low as 0.25 (0.12-0.54) for the transition to no disability for the basic activities.Conclusions: In the setting of an illness/injury, bed rest was more strongly associated with a set of clinically meaningful transitions in functional status than cut down activities. Prompt medical attention may be warranted when an older person takes to bed because of an illness/injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly 20% of US citizens are disabled. Epidemiologic studies have shown that people with physical disabilities have a 1.2- to 3.9-fold increase in obesity prevalence. Obesity is becoming a serious problem in disabled individuals. The mechanisms by which obesity occurs in people with physical disabilities is not clear, but pathophysiological changes of body composition and energy metabolism, physical inactivity, and muscle atrophy all favor the development of obesity. Health professionals should identify disabled patients at risk and provide early prevention guidance. Research is needed to help generate detailed clinical guidelines to promote weight control among people with physical disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Physical performance measures can predict incident disability, but little research has assessed and compared how these measures predict progressive and rapid-onset (catastrophic) disability. The authors evaluated the ability of upper and lower extremity performance measures to predict progressive and catastrophic disability in activities of daily living (ADL), mobility, and upper extremity function. Methods. The incidence of progressive and catastrophic disability was assessed semiannually during a 3-year period in 884 women participating in the Women's Health and Aging Study I. Four-meter walking speed, balance, and chair stands tests were used to evaluate lower extremity function. The putting-on-blouse test, the Purdue pegboard test, and grip strength were used to assess upper extremity function. Summary performance scores (SPS) for the lower and upper extremities were calculated. Among participants in whom disability developed, those who reported no difficulty in the previous year were defined as cases of catastrophic disability, and those who previously reported little or some difficulty were considered to be cases of progressive disability. Cox proportional hazard regression analyses were used to evaluate the association of performance measures and time to incident disability. The predictive ability of performance measures was compared using receiver-operator characteristic curves. Results. All lower and upper extremity measures, with the exception of grip strength, significantly predicted the onset of progressive ADL disability, but only walking speed was significantly associated with the onset of catastrophic ADL disability. The chair stands test, walking speed, and the lower extremity SPS were significantly associated with the onset of both progressive and catastrophic mobility disability. Only lower extremity individual tests and SPS significantly predicted the onset of both progressive and catastrophic upper extremity disability. The... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]