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To explore individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) experiences with and perceptions towards teleSCI services during the COVID-19 global pandemic in British Columbia, Canada. Using maximum variation sampling, we invited selected individuals from a larger quantitative dataset (n = 71) to partake in an interview. In total, 12 individuals participated in the study. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interview transcripts were then coded and analysed by team members using qualitative descriptive analysis. Individuals with an SCI perceived teleSCI services to be convenient, accessible, affordable, and an effective way to access some healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in-person healthcare was still needed by many participants to effectively manage and treat their SCI-associated secondary conditions. Our findings suggest that, in a post-pandemic world, the SCI community would benefit from blended models of healthcare delivery that leverage telecommunication technologies to increase accessibility to healthcare while still providing in-person care for assessments and treatments. Individuals with an SCI perceived teleSCI services to be convenient, accessible, affordable, and an effective way to access some healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in-person healthcare was still needed and desired by those with an SCI to effectively manage and treat their SCI-associated secondary conditions. In a post-pandemic world, individuals with an SCI would benefit from blended models of healthcare delivery that leverage telecommunication technologies to increase accessibility to healthcare, while still providing in-person care for those requiring ongoing treatment and management of secondary conditions associated with the patient's SCI. TeleSCI services offer the potential to allow healthcare professionals and SCI specialists to collaborate (digitally) with patients at the same time. This patient-centered approach could not only help healthcare professionals strategize effective remedies to better manage secondary conditions associated with SCI but could result in overall better-quality care received by those within the SCI community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As COVID-19 crosses the globe, disabled people are subject to new medical and discursive realities. Focusing on the consequences of the latter, we utilize news reports from Canada and the UK to argue the current language of pre-existing conditions represents disability as non-life, explaining away the material realities facing disabled persons. This language ignores the distribution of care work in our societies, poverty, and other forms of exclusion facing disabled people and the population more generally. Work on ventilator users points to these existing inequalities, obscured as they may be. This story is not new. Outlining existing narratives within disability studies challenging disability as deadly biological and economic deficiency and situating the 'pre-existing' terminology therein, we look to work in disability studies and bioethics to challenge the disability-death equation. We end reviewing counter-narratives by and for disabled people, highlighting the ongoing and life-affirming resistance throughout the disability rights movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: At the age of 21, the trajectory of services offered to youth with profound intellectual disability (ID) change significantly since access to specialised services is more limited. Despite the desire of parents to avoid any impact on their child, several factors can influence the course of this transition. However, there is little research on facilitators and obstacles to the transition to adulthood, and impacts on people with a profound ID. It is therefore difficult to provide solutions that meet their specific needs.Objective: The study aimed to document the needs of parents and young adults with profound ID during and after the transition to adulthood by exploring their transitioning experience and factors that influenced it.Method: Using a descriptive qualitative design, two individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with fourteen (14) parents of young adults aged between 18 and 26 with a profound ID.Results: At this point, many material, informative, cognitive and emotional needs of young adults and their parents are not met. Obstacles, mainly organisational, persist and result in a particularly difficult transition to adulthood experience.Conclusion: By knowing the specific needs of these families, it is possible to develop and implement solutions tailored to their reality. WHAT THE PAPERS ADDS?: The transition to adulthood is a critical period for families with young adults with an intellectual disability (ID), a reality observed internationally. Current literature on all levels of ID suggests some barriers to transition that lead to negative impacts on both parents and young adults with ID. However, presently, very little research exists on the reality of families of young adults with profound ID and factors influencing transition to adult life. Most of studies target people with mild to moderate ID. Considering the significant disabilities of people with profound ID, it is possible to imagine that their experience of transition will be even more difficult and they will present specific needs. The lack of understanding of these needs makes it difficult to introduce solutions tailored to their reality. The results of this current study suggest that many needs of young adults with profound ID and their parents are not met despite existent transition planning services. Transition to adulthood seems particularly difficult for these families who face many challenges. Parents in this study proposed different obstacles during transition to adulthood that could be improved for creation of future solutions adapted to their reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is a landmark international agreement recognizing the rights and equal status of disabled people. States Parties commit to protect the right to life of all such people and to promote their equal dignity. Canada ratified the convention in 2010. However, Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying Act, which received royal assent in 2016, allows for assisted suicide and euthanasia of those disabled people who have a grievous and irremediable medical condition. This essay contends that the act violates Canada's treaty obligations not to enact legislation inconsistent with the convention by jeopardizing the right to life of such people and placing them in a significantly unequal status within Canadian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do texts play in LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) parents’ experiences of disability service systems? In interviews with 15 LGBTQ parents of disabled children in Toronto, Canada, participants selected documents to be used as a focus for discussion. Parents considered how LGBTQ identity and other intersectional identities influenced their experiences of institutional texts including adoption certificates, intake forms, and assessments. Findings suggest that documentation practices can operate as forms of systemic gatekeeping. LGBTQ identity was sometimes very significant in parents’ accounts, and sometimes less central than other aspects of their families' identities and experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objectives. We investigated the perspectives of people using a wheelchair and their difficulties in accessing dental services. Methods. Our participatory research was on the basis of a partnership between people using a wheelchair, dental professionals, and academic researchers. Partners were involved in a committee that provided advice at all stages of the project. Our team adopted a qualitative descriptive design. Between October 2011 and October 2012 we conducted semistructured individual interviews with 13 adults who lived in Montreal, Québec, Canada, and used a wheelchair full time. We audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim interviews, and we interpreted data using an inductive thematic analysis. Results. Oral health is of heightened importance to this group of people, who tend to use their mouth as a "third hand." We identified successive challenges in accessing dental services: finding a dentist and being accepted, organizing transportation, entering the building and circulating inside, interacting with the dental staff, transferring and overcoming discomfort on the dental chair, and paying for the treatments. Conclusions. Governments, dental professional bodies, dental schools, and researchers should work with groups representing wheelchair users to improve access to dental services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The transition to adulthood is extremely difficult for individuals with disabilities. We sought to explore the specific issue of transition to adult-oriented health care in a Canadian context. Methods: We conducted semi-structured individual interviews with 15 youth and 15 adults with cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and acquired brain injuries of childhood, and their parents ( n = 30). Respondents discussed their health care services, their experience with clinical transition, and contributing factors. We analyzed the transcripts using qualitative methods. Results: All participants identified challenges in transition, including: lack of access to health care; lack of professionals' knowledge; lack of information and uncertainty regarding the transition process. Two solutions were identified: early provision of detailed information and more extensive support throughout the clinical transition process. Discussion: The challenges of clinical transition were universal. More extensive information and support is needed during transition to ensure an efficient move to appropriate adult-oriented health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the perceived impact of leadership and participation by people with physical disabilities on access to health care in the U.S. and Canada. The data from this study also identifies the importance of collaborative partnerships, and impact these collaborations have on strengthening access to services of various constituency groups. This study is significant at this time within the disability arena since states and provinces will increasingly assume responsibility for the assignment of fiscal resources under managed care and two tier funding schemes. Under these schemes, the consumer often can be left to feel that their voice is unheard. Regardless, the results of this study point to the value of advocacy efforts and highlight the true value of "empowerment." Secondly, the results provide useful insights into how we may be able to develop training interventions which will facilitate effective partnerships between key actors within the health and human service planning sectors. Bearing these results in mind, it may be helpful to develop support from grassroots action groups, both on a level where people are supported to pursue involvement for their own benefit, but also the greater good of the community.

Compares five community projects in the Canadian Health Promotion Contribution Program to examine the participation of poor women, street children and disabled persons in health promotion projects. Relationship of community participation to socio-cultural, organizational and political-legal-economic structures; Structural factors influencing participation.

The author reflects on barrier free access of patients with disabilities. Topics discussed include the negative effects of barriers in accessing health care on health, the increased commitment of provincial governments in Canada to improve health care accessibility, and the role of physicians to improve health care for patients with disabilities.

The article discusses aspects of the physical access of health care facilities for people with disabilities in Canada. It examines the impact of the lack of knowledge of the physicians in administering quality medical care to the patients' health. It also cites the importance of the availability of medical equipments for the people with disabilities.