From the Houston Chronicle:

Nearly half of the youths locked up in the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center [have] mental health problems — far more than the estimated 20 percent with mental disorders in the general youth population — figures released Thursday show. [Harris County includes Houston.]

These youngsters, mostly teenagers, have been diagnosed with maladies including bipolar and attention deficit disorders, according to data compiled by a group of organizations studying the issue. Nearly 20 percent have severe emotional problems, the data show, and a quarter had never been diagnosed previously.

“For the first time ever we’ve collected amazing data that really give us the hard facts about what issues are there and what diagnosis we need to treat,” said Betsy Schwartz, president of Mental Health America of Greater Houston. The nonprofit agency and the county juvenile probation department are coordinating Operation Redirect, a collaboration of local groups trying to prevent mentally ill kids from ending up behind bars.

See related posts:

• Mentally ill strain Georgia prisons
• Editorial: Help — not jail — needed for people with mental illness

From Time magazine:

South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee who races on carbon blades, is named to the list of the World’s Most Influential People in Time Magazine’s annual issue. Paralympian Pistorius is challenging the rules in an attempt to compete in the Beijing Olympics. (Earlier post here.) The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ruled in January that Pistorius could not compete because his blades were said to give him an unfair advantage.

Time’s profile of Pistorius was written by Erik Weihenmayer, the only blind person to have climbed Mount Everest (earlier post here). Weihenmayer says Pistorius is “on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage.”

Also featured in Time’s annual 100 issue:

• Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher who studied her own stroke and became a powerful voice for brain recovery (video here);
• Cyclist and cancer survivor advocate Lance Armstrong;
• Suzanne and Robert Wright, founders of Autism Speaks

From the Orlando Sentinel:

An increasing number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are losing their eyesight not because of bullet or bomb wounds but in what doctors suspect is a delayed reaction to the constant pounding of nearby explosives.

Studies conducted by the military have estimated that up to 20 percent of the 1.7 million troops who have served and returned from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from mild traumatic brain injury, most often as a result of roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

Bill Wilson, a blindness-rehabilitation specialist at the Orlando VA Medical Center, sees a coming wave of woe. “We won’t know for months,” he said. “We can see the individuals and they may be perfectly fine, and then down the line they have problems.”

… Preliminary results from a pilot study suggested that as many as 70 percent of severely wounded soldiers treated for traumatic brain injuries also complain of double vision, difficulties in reading, blindness and other vision problems.

Learning to deal with PTSD, lost limbs, brain injuries

From the Raleigh News & Observer:

With 1.5 million service members coming out of military duty in Afghanistan and Iraq since October 2001, colleges and universities across the nation have been striving to welcome them to campus. But it’s often not easy to help veterans cope with the consequences of their injuries.

Cheryl Branker, director of disability compliance at North Carolina State University, says many departments at the school have been slow to recognize that veterans may need accommodations for their disabilities. Many vets have returned with diagnoses of PTSD, tramatic brain injury, lost limbs or other chronic medical conditions.

“Not only am I a full-time student,” said one returning veteran, “I’m a full-time patient. It takes a toll, mentally and physically. Sometimes I’m there in class, but only in body. Not in mind.”

“In none of the endless presidential candidates’ debates has there been a meaningful discussion of the rights of disabled Americans,” says columnist Nat Hentoff in a column in the Sacramento Bee.

Hentoff takes Barack Obama to task for his recent statement of regret at having voted with the Senate to ask the federal courts to review the case of Terri Schiavo. By making the remark, Hentoff says,

Obama casually and ignorantly revealed his misunderstanding of the basic issue in the highly visible and still-resonating official death sentence of a disabled woman.

Hentoff says Obama failed to understand the basic message of 29 major disability-rights organizations on the case: that this was not a right-to-die case, but a case about a woman’s right to continue living.

Says Hentoff:

[Obama] should be proud of the Senate vote he now recants — and learn a lot more about the disabled.

From Joseph Shapiro of National Public Radio, another extended feature on wounded Army Sgt. Tim Ngo of Minnesota. Ngo almost died of a head wound in Iraq four years ago.

Like many injured soldiers, Ngo relied heavily on a dedicated family member to help him through the laborious rehabilitation process. His mother stuck by him as he learned again to walk and talk, and to cope with everything from short-term memory loss to unexpected bursts of anger.

Although Ngo has made great strides, his relationship with his mother is now badly frayed; they aren’t even talking to each other. He and his girlfriend (above) are moving to Texas. “I don’t know how to fix it,” says his mother, Hong Wyberg. “I don’t know how to change it except to let him go.”

‘Now is the time to act to protect the disabled’

From the Chicago Tribune:

Lynne Landsberg, a rabbi who sustained a traumatic brain injury in a car accident, urges speedy action on the ADA Restoration Act of 2007. It is needed to close loopholes in the ADA and ensure the comprehensive civil rights protections the 1990 bill was meant to provide, she writes.

Before my brain injury, I belonged to one minority that was strong and articulate — the American Jewish community. Now, I belong to a second minority that is daily the victim of discrimination yet remains powerless and barely heard — people with disabilities.

… Even with résumés that indicate they are qualified for the job, [people with disabilities] must convince employers that the discomfort disability engenders will not impede their work ethic.

Unfortunately, thousands of Americans face unconscionable acts of disability-related discrimination in the workplace every day.

… We must encourage Congress to recognize that people with disabilities are human beings with full civil rights who want to work, support their families and live their lives.

More on Lynne Landsberg from Washington Jewish Week.