Hi All,

World


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Website boon to disabled

SHANNON PROUDFOOT


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T CANWEST NEWS SERVICE here’s a new online gathering place where revealing 
that you use a wheelchair or can’t hear is no big deal, because the person 
you’re chatting with probably lives a similar experience. Disaboom.com — so 
named because the creator wanted to “blow the doors off” stereotypes — is a 
website for the disabled community that combines lifestyle and medical 
information, discussion boards, social networking, a career centre and a 
dating site. It lays claim to being the first for-profit online destination 
for people with disabilities, which translates to a slick, sophisticated space 
with plenty of resources. Conversations range from a mother worried that her 
two-year-old isn’t yet walking with his prosthesis to advice on sex after a 
spinal cord injury and the fine art of “signaoke,” or karaoke for the 
hearing-impaired. There are also lively discussions about all sorts of topics 
that have nothing to do with disability. “It’s a never-ending search for a 
good website where people with disabilities can go and get together,” says 
Darren Forsyth, 33, a paraplegic who lives in Regina. “When I found Disaboom, 
it was an automatic connection.” The site has attracted more than 350,000 
unique viewers from 178 countries since its October launch. “It’s almost like 
a support group, but it’s the entire world at your fingertips,” says founder 
and chief medical officer Dr. Glen House. A skiing accident in college left 
him with no movement below the chest and limited dexterity in his hands. House 
is now medical director of the Center for Neuro and Trauma Rehabilitation in 
Colorado Springs. House sustained a spinal cord injury in the pre-Internet 
dark ages of 1990, so the only resource available to him at the time was a few 
people at a supportgroup meeting. As a doctor, he realized he was having the 
same in-depth bedside chats with all of his patients, offering a mix of 
medical knowledge and his own experience. The Internet provided a global 
vehicle for people to share expertise about living with disabilit ies, and so 
Disaboom was born. Regina’s Forsyth says a resource like Disaboom could have 
smoothed his road to recovery from a spinal injury. “It’s a huge transition 
where a person really needs to have other people in the situation to be able 
to relate to.”



        Kevin
        klement{at}gypsy-designs.com

... Murphy's Military Law: Friendly fire ain't.
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