March, 2009

It's very common for someone who's had a fall or been in a car accident to appear perfectly lucid just after the impact but then to suddenly, rapidly deteriorate, Dr. Carmelo Graffagnino, director of Duke University Medical Center's Neurosciences Critical Care Unit, told CNN.

The Open Doors Home Health Care Act will face a critical vote, perhaps next week, in the House Professional Occupations Subcommitee.

If you have a legislator on this committee, then please take a few minutes to contact them and ask for their support.  If they are a sponsor, then please thank them.  A list of committee members and their contact information is below.

Life for most people with mental or physical disabilities is vastly improved over what it was twenty or thirty years ago.  However, some things have been slower to change; namely, attitudes and perceptions about people with disabilities. 

This year the Coalition has introduced legislation to return flexbility to home health care provided through TennCare.  The legislation is known as the Open Doors Home Health Care Act.  It is sponsored by Senator Diane Black (Senate Bill 851) and Representative David Shepard (House Bill 1114).  We hope you will reach out to your legislators and ask them to support the legislation.

If you are reading this blog post, then you have found our new home on the web.  This new site was designed with the reader in mind.  We have made it easier to find information about our various programs as well as integrated a News Blog into the main site.

My wife and I were in a motel in Roanoke, Va., on our way home from three months at the Hershey Medical Center in Pennsylvania, where she had been convalescing after being crippled in a car accident. It was our first night away from the skill and comfort of the nurses we had come to depend on, and so far, so good.