Life doesn’t take a break. Things come up in our lives 24 hours a day, every day. Problems don’t wait until it’s convenient for us. That’s why Tikvah Layeled provides 24 hour support to caregivers and parents of children with cerebral palsy.

There are many facets to the disorder associated with CP. Some are not always evident and care for a child with CP can be challenging and confusing at times, but parents, and even caregivers, need to know they are not in it alone. They can draw upon the years of experience provided by the caregivers at Tikvah Layeled.

Parenting is difficult enough, but for parents of disabled children it can seem like there is nowhere else to turn. For the dedicated caregivers at Tikvah Layeled, they understand this. Advice, compassion, and a sympathetic ear, can go a long way in providing support in times of need. Caring for a child that is suffering can be a painful experience for any parent, but help is available around the clock, all year round.

When questions come up, whether they are related to therapy or to the specialized equipment that is used to assist children with CP, referrals, information and advice are all available. In addition to the many counseling sessions, therapy and fun activities Tikvah Layeled regularly provides children, sometimes a phone call is all it takes to answer questions or advise a parent who is feeling overwhelmed. Tikvah Layeled provides that support around the clock. Sometimes all we need is a word of encouragement.

While we may think health clubs are solely the domain of the young and fit, they are actually anything but. People of all ages have returned to the gym so that they may lead healthier, longer lives. This includes 43 percent of the nation’s seniors. While this is certainly good news for gyms wishing to increase their memberships, as well as for the seniors themselves, there are some challenges to this seemingly win-win situation. One obstacle is the fact that most exercise equipment found in gyms was designed for people aged 18 to 35. They are often high impact machines that offer high resistance and were made to build young muscles.

To serve an aging population, low impact and low resistance equipment is needed to ensure that elderly gym users can exercise safely. Since falls are a main contributor to injury in seniors, any exercise that strengthens muscles and improves balance is desirable. To address this issue, companies like HUR, a maker of health and fitness equipment, uses their patented and award-winning exercise equipment to help seniors get fit and stay that way. Using smart card technology, HUR machines record activity and provide feedback to the user so they can improve and measure their progress. These machines also utilize low-impact technology that offers close to zero resistance, which enables weak or injured people to recover faster and strengthen muscles quicker.

This type of exercise equipment is changing the way we age and helping all of us live longer and healthier by improving the quality of daily life.

Hunter Gandee came up with the title of “Cerebral Palsy Swagger.” It’s an amusing and quite understated title that doesn’t quite do justice to the 57-mile trek he undertook this past June to help raise awareness for the brain disorder. Leave it to a modest fifteen year old to downplay the his role in this admirable accomplishment.

Hunter was inspired to undertake the journey by his little brother, Braden. Braden, who suffers from CP, went on the journey too, strapped to his big brothers back. It’s been a means of travel for the eight-year-old his whole life, so Hunter decided this was the way he would complete his three-day walking campaign.

The trip was well-documented on social media as the pair of brothers made their way across southern Michigan. Plenty of well-wishers, friends and family showed up and voiced their encouragement. Local fire and police departments were more than happy to provide special escorts as the brothers made their way through their towns.

The trek began in Lambertville, MI, where Braden attends a local school. Over 500 hundred of his classmates accompanied them on their first steps. The journey ended in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan Rehabilitation Center where Braden underwent a previously-scheduled surgical procedure.

Despite the modesty of his “Swagger”, Hunter was moved by the journey he and his brother made. The positive attention and support they received was more than he imagined and it gives him hope that his generation can do more to raise awareness of cerebral palsy and better understand those who live with it every day.

Jewel Kats is a lot of things, disabled is just one of them. It’s what she does with her disability that is so inspiring. She takes it and turns it into a source of inspiration for others. Her web comics series, DitzAbled Princess, has steadily closed in on 200,000 hits since it launched in early 2013. In the strip, co-created with Katarina Andriopoulos, Jewel in comic character form, shares her observations about her life with readers, many of whom are disabled. Her audience, disabled or not, enjoys her quirky take on life’s many trials and tribulations and the comic team have amassed enough strips for a collection, DitzAbled Princess: A Comical Diary, published by by Marvelous Spirit Press.

In the strip Kats shares her life with complete strangers and provides inspiration and a positive role model for those, particularly women, with disabilities. She is not immune from taking jabs at herself either, such as enjoying the perks that come with her disability (getting out of housework and flirting with her paratransit drivers). That’s the lighter side, of course, there are many times when Kats has been made to feel like less than a person by ignorant, if well-meaning, strangers.

Kats is a self-described former teen runaway who has in fact come a long way as an advocate for the disabled, especially teens, who may feel a lot of anger and resentment towards their disability. She wrote a syndicated advice column for disabled teens that enjoyed a six year run in Canada. She also authored seven books before her interests turned to comics. Whatever her current passions and creative pursuits are now, whatever they maybe in the future, Kats will continue to thrive and inspire those to overcome their disabilities, and like her, turn negatives into positives.

For a 37-year-old mother of a child born with a rare genetic disorder, strength comes in helping people understand that these children are not so different from others. Despite having to deal with a difficult pregnancy and a daughter given little chance of survival by doctors, Lissette Lent learned to be hopeful as she has coped with her daughter’s disabilities.

As a parent of a disabled child, Lent saw firsthand how other children, even parents, reacted to her daughter, Maggie Hope. Lent wanted to send a message of acceptance that would resonate with kids and adults alike. To help parents and teachers educate their children how to deal with differently-abled children, Lent wrote a children’s book, We’re Not So Different After All and launched a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to help publish it. Lent hopes that someday the book will be common in libraries of elementary schools across the country.

Lent feels that a lack of understanding is the core to the problem and not insensitivity. She feels education is an important step in giving people the tools they need to deal with disabled children. She wants to help start conversations and to let kids know that it’s OK to ask questions about disabilities so that they can understand that these children are not so different from themselves. She also wants to give disabled children, and the parents who love them, hope and strength in overcoming these challenges.