Occupational Therapy meetings & conferences

Second International Workshop on Design & Implementation of Independent & Assisted Living Technology – DIILT ’12

At 26th Annual HCI Conference of the British Computer Society HCI 2012 - People and Computers XXVI

Birmingham, U.K, 10th-14th September 2012

The aim of this workshop is to bring together experts, academics and practitioners to share experiences and expertise of assisted living technology, telecare or telehealth implementations and evaluations.

Discussions will focus on the challenges and best practices in evaluating the impact of practical and pragmatic implementations and large scale roll-out of health technologies 'in the wild' (i.e outside of the lab and beyond pilot studies).

The workshop will review case studies, trials, design, development and implementations of technologies reaching end-users in their homes to support, tele-care, telehealth, independent or assisted living. The aim is to assess how technologies can be integrated into people's homes and communities and how resulting benefits or disbenefits on people's health and wellbeing can be objectively measured and evaluated.

American Deafness and Rehabilitation Association 2013 Conference

May 29 – June 1, 2013 Bloomington, Minnesota

Goal of the Conference

The American Deafness and Rehabilitation Association (ADARA) is pleased to announce the 2013 ADARA Conference, a national conference to be hosted in Minnesota. Our conference theme is “Blazing New Trails” which refers to “doing something different,” “doing early or pioneering work that others will follow up on,” and “doing something that no one has done before, especially something important for other people.”

This conference seeks to provide training and networking opportunities for mental health professionals, vocational rehabilitation counselors, independent living service providers, educators, interpreters, transition specialists, community-based rehabilitation providers, and any support staff in the helping professions.

Possible Areas and Topics

• Interfacing education and mental health
• Working with trilingual families
• Testing demonstrations
• Olmstead, recovery, peer support
• Supporting community living options
• Drug/alcohol abuse treatment strategies
• Trauma informed care
• Working with low functioning/language dysfluent consumers
• Developing cultural competency
• Therapeutic techniques/theories & effective counseling techniques & strategies (e.g., EMDR, DBT)
• Mental health/chemical dependency interpreting

• Deaf/Hard of Hearing cross-cultural conflicts
• Professional management
• Public policy
• Using technology in therapeutic settings
• Navigating the new health care environment
• Client-centered approaches/ Early interventions
• Career assessments
• Residential programming
• Levels of care: residential, outpatient, intensive, group homes
• Job coaching/Job placement
• Transition
• Autism
• Vocational evaluations
• Work adjustment

5th Annual Assistive Technology Across the Lifespan Conference (ATALC)

Announcing the 2012 Assistive Technology Across the Lifespan Conference. This years conference will again be held at the Glacier Canyon Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells, WI, December 6 & 7, 2012.

ATALC is planning a 2 day agenda with one full day of 3 hour intensive workshop sessions and a second full day of breakout sessions.

ATALC will be hosting Wisconsin’s largest Free Exhibit hall where everyone is welcome to attend and see the newest in assistive technology software and devices for persons with disabilities.

Primary Contact:

Cindy Nankee
Email: info@atacrosslifespan.org
Phone: 734-735-0838

2012 Consortia of Administrators for Native American Rehabilitation (CANAR) Mid-Year Conference

Rising Above the Mist

The 2012 CANAR Mid-Year Conference on Native American Rehabilitation is scheduled for June 17-20, 2012 in Niagara Falls, New York and will be hosted by the Seneca Nation of Indians.

The Conference is of particular interest to representatives from 84 American Indian Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) projects across the country, American Indians with disabilities including family members, State VR agencies, Client Assistance Programs, tribal government leaders and program administrators, educators, researchers and professionals involved in rehabilitation services.

OVERVIEW OF CONFERENCE THEME
In our daily lives it is often difficult to see how far we have come from where we started. We allow the small stuff to build up and weigh us down both physically and spiritually. This is true of all of us whether we are directors, counselors, support staff, or consumers. It is important that we remember to “rise above the mist” in order to see the progress we are making towards our goals. If each of us will work to be a beacon of light that shines through the mist for someone else, only then will we truly appreciate the rainbows.

Questions
Contact Joe Kelley
1-318-727-9793
JKelley@CANAR.org

Fourteenth International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

ASSETS 2012 will be held in Boulder, Colorado, USA (October 22-24, 2012)

The ASSETS conference explores the design, evaluation, and use of computing and information technologies to benefit people with disabilities and older adults. ASSETS is the premier forum for presenting innovative research on mainstream and specialized assistive technologies, accessible computing, and assistive applications of computer, network, and information technologies. This includes the use of technology by and in support of:

Individuals with hearing, sight and other sensory impairments
Individuals with motor impairments
Individuals with memory, learning and cognitive impairments
Individuals with multiple impairments
Older adults with diverse capabilities
Professionals who work with these populations

29th International Seating Symposium

March 5 – 9, 2013
(March 5 to 6 Pre-Symposium & March 7 to 9 Main Symposium)

Nashville, Tennessee

The symposium will include scientific and clinical papers, a research forum, in-depth workshops, panel sessions, and an extensive exhibit hall. Presentations should address the seating and wheeled mobility issues of people with disabilities across the lifespan such as neuromuscular disorders, spinal cord injury and diseases of the spinal cord, orthopedic conditions, systemic conditions, obesity, or polytrauma.

Interactive Technologies and Games: Education, Health and Disability 2012 (ITAG)

The “Interactive Technologies and Games: Education, Health and Disability 2012″ (ITAG) conference takes place this year on 23-24 October 2012 at Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham in the United Kingdom.

The aim of the conference is to bring together academics and practitioners working with interactive technologies to explore and innovate within the areas of Education, Health and Disability. We have a particular focus on the use of gaming hardware and software to implement accessible solutions, interaction design using new input/output devices and the increasing impact of ubiquitous computing on our everyday well being.

The conference provides an excellent opportunity to showcase practice and to mainstream research ideas and outcomes. It introduces a wider audience to key findings and products from research and illustrates how practice feeds back into and informs research. The conference creates a forum for two-way communication between the academic and practitioner communities and particularly welcomes user led presentations and workshops.

The programme includes presentations of papers, workshops, and an exhibition space for demonstrations and posters. This event is held in partnership with GameCity – the World’s best-loved videogame festival (http://gamecity.org/) and delegates are welcome to attend all GameCity events including the opening drinks reception.

2nd International Symposium on Neurorehabilitation

October 18-19, 2012 Valencia, Spain

The incidence of acquired brain injuries (ABIs) and other neurological conditions represents an increasing healthcare problem worldwide.

The complexity of these pathologies makes a multidisciplinary treatment approach necessary which takes as a starting point the important advances that are being made in information and communication technologies (ICTs), virtual reality or robotics. At the same time, neurorehabilitation can also benefit from research in more experimental (biochemical, genetics, functionals, etc.) and clinical (pharmacological, early prevention, etc.) areas. We feel that the Symposium will be an excellent meeting point for professionals and researchers that wish to establish synergies among their respective disciplines which could lead to innovative approaches, and important advances, in neurorehabilitation research.

It has now been just over two years since we organized the “I International Symposium on Neurorehabilitation: From basics to future”. In that first edition, more than 400 delegates from 30 different countries joined us to make the Symposium a success. But, most importantly, the Symposium served as a meeting point for many researchers and professionals.

The Conselleria de Sanitat, the Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe (Prince Felipe Research Centre) and the Fundación Instituto Valenciano de Neurorrehabilitación (FIVAN) are collaborating to organize this second edition. Basic neuroscience, clinical neurorehabilitation and neurotechnology will come together once again in 2012 with the objective of improving healthcare models and promoting the use of technology in neurorehabilitation. All of this, for the benefit of our patients. For three days, world-renowned experts will review the current state and the latest advances made in the field of Neurorehabilitation.

Envision Conference

Envision invites you to attend the Envision Conference September 12-15, 2012 at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark in St. Louis, Missouri.

Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to be part of the multi-disciplinary conference for the low vision rehabilitation field.

Envision Conference 2012 will feature clinical education, workshops and research presentations. The adjacent exhibit hall features vendors from all over the country displaying the latest in technology and services in vision rehabilitation as well as book publishers and optometric suppliers.

Conference activities begin with pre-conference workshops Wednesday, with regular sessions convening Thursday through Saturday.

Thursday evening, Envision will host a welcome reception, a great place to meet and greet invited speakers, vendors, friends and colleagues.

Who Should Attend?

Optometrists, ophthalmologists, occupational therapists, rehabilitation therapists, licensed visual therapists, nurses, vision researchers and other low vision rehabilitation professionals from across the country, can earn valuable CE credits, meet with industry representatives to review new developments and technologies, access new products and services and network with colleagues.

Additionally, the Envision Conference benefits special education teachers, community agency personnel, government policy makers, rehabilitation engineers and assistive technology practitioners and suppliers.

5th International Conference on Pervasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA 2012)

June 6-8, 2012 Crete Island, Greece

Conference Theme
The PETRA Conference brings together different types of technology to address an important social and healthcare issue: as the world's population ages, there is growing interest in solutions for the in- home care of the elderly as well as for the care of people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other disabilities or traumas. PETRA (which means "stone" in Greek) reflects the needs of the domestic environment, or "Oikos" as it was known in ancient Greece, but from a technological perspective. People's living environments are particularly important in an increasingly crowded and complex world where the need for inclusiveness and connectivity with the rest of the world is key. PETRA addresses the fact that, as people grow older, they will increasingly rely on technology to be able to stay in their homes.

Contact Us
E-Mail: petrae@uta.edu