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Washington, D.C. - Congressman Dave Loebsack recently continued his fight against misguided cuts to Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) that provide care to many Iowans living in rural areas. Loebsack helped lead a bipartisan effort with 45 Members of Congress in calling on the President to refrain from including arbitrary cuts to CAH in his upcoming budget proposal.

"(Critical Access Hospitals) play an important role in communities by providing access to primary, emergency, and acute care services," the lawmakers wrote. "As you consider the FY 2016 budget, we believe that indiscriminate cuts to CAHs, similar to those included in previous budgets, are not the answer."

A copy of the letter can be seen here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- November 24, 2014

WASHINGTON - Holiday cheer and merrymaking may be everywhere this time of year, but for thousands grieving the loss of a loved one, the holiday season can be an emotional minefield. And there's no road map for easy navigation.

Coping with grief over the death of a loved one during the holidays can be difficult. Memories of holiday traditions shared with a loved one who died may be painful. Somehow, mourners must navigate an emotional roller coaster ride during the holidays that can be bittersweet with nostalgia and happy memories, and also feel painfully cruel and isolating.

The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), a national nonprofit organization offering comfort and care to families of our fallen military troops, offers the following tips to help anyone who is grieving the death of a loved one during the holiday season.

Take charge of your holiday season. Anticipating the holiday, especially if it's the first one without a cherished family member, can be worse than the actual holiday. Take charge of your holiday plans, and map out how you will spend your time. This can help relieve anxiety.

Make plans. Plan to spend the holidays where you feel nurtured, emotionally safe, and comfortable. Having a plan will help you navigate the holiday season and its activities. But remember to plan for flexibility, as you may not know how your emotions will respond, especially if it is your first or second holiday season after the death of a loved one.

Find sustenance for the soul. Your church, synagogue, mosque or other faith community may offer services, resources, and support networks for the bereaved. You may want to look for a support group for people who are grieving and have suffered a similar loss. Families who have lost a loved one serving in the military may find comfort by connecting with other survivors through the TAPS online community, peer support groups, peer mentoring or care groups.

Don't be afraid to change your holiday traditions. Some traditions may be a comfort, while others can cause pain. Consider which traditions to keep, and which ones to forego this year. Do not feel like you have to do something because you have always done it that way.

Include your lost loved one in gift-giving. Give a gift on behalf of your loved one to someone else. Consider making a donation to a charity in memory of your loved one.

Create a tribute. Light a candle, display a favorite photograph, or set a place at the dinner table to represent the missing loved one. Consider writing a letter to your loved one about the holidays and your special memories with that person.

Be gentle with yourself. Realize that familiar traditions, sights, smells and even tastes, may be comforting, or may jolt your emotions. This is the time of year when you need to be careful with your emotions and listen to yourself.

Attend holiday functions if you can. Consider attending holiday parties and events, especially if you'll be able to spend time with supportive family members and friends. Make an escape plan in case the event is more than you can handle. If you think a holiday gathering might be more than you can bear, it is ok to stay home.

Don't pretend you haven't experienced a loss. Imagining that nothing has happened does not make the pain of losing a loved one go away, nor does it make the holidays easier to endure. Even though holiday memories may be painful, they can be comforting. It is ok to talk with others about what you have lost and what the holidays mean to you.

Pay attention to your health. It's often difficult for people who have experienced a recent loss to sleep. Make sure you get regular rest and drink lots of water. Do not over-indulge in sweets or alcohol. If you feel overwhelmed, talk with your medical care provider.

Take stock of both joy and sadness. Give yourself permission to feel joy as well as sadness. Don't feel like you have to "be a certain way" because of your loss, or because it is the holidays. Just be yourself.

Express your feelings. Bottling up your feelings may add to distress, not lessen it. To express your feelings, use your creativity to write a poem, talk with a supportive friend, create a painting, or pen a journal entry.

Share your holiday season with someone else. There are many lonely people who might like to experience the holiday season alongside someone else. Consider volunteering with a local charity or soup kitchen, inviting a neighbor for a special holiday meal or including others in your holiday activities.

For more tips on dealing with grief during the holidays, go to the TAPS website at www.taps.org and look for our holiday survival guide. TAPS will hold a special online chat for grieving military families on November 19 at 9pm Eastern Time with bereavement expert Darcie Sims to discuss handling the holidays. Sign up online through the TAPS online community at www.taps.org.

About TAPS
The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) is the national organization providing compassionate care for the families of America's fallen military heroes and has offered support to more than 50,000 surviving family members of our fallen military and their caregivers since 1994. TAPS provides peer-based emotional support, grief and trauma resources, grief seminars and retreats for adults, Good Grief Camps for children, case work assistance, connections to community-based care, online and in-person support groups and a 24/7 resource and information helpline for all who have been affected by a death in the Armed Forces. Services are provided free of charge. For more information go to www.taps.org or call the toll-free TAPS resource and information helpline at 1.800.959.TAPS (8277).

Powered lower limb prosthetics hold promise for improving the mobility of amputees, but errors in the technology may also cause some users to stumble or fall. New research examines exactly what happens when these technologies fail, with the goal of developing a new generation of more robust powered prostheses.

"My work has focused on developing technology that translates electrical signals in human muscle into signals that control powered prosthetic limbs - such as decoding muscle signals to tell a prosthetic leg that it needs to walk forward or step up onto a staircase," says Dr. Helen Huang, senior author of a paper on the work and an associate professor in the joint biomedical engineering program at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"But sometimes this 'decoding' technology makes mistakes, such as thinking someone wants to climb a step when he doesn't," says Fan Zhang, lead author of the paper and a Ph.D. student in the joint biomedical engineering program. "This is a problem, because we don't want to put users at risk of stumbling or falling."

Huang's team set out to understand exactly what happens to users of powered prosthetic legs when there's an error in the decoding technology.

"We not only want to improve the decoding accuracy, but determine which errors are important and which have little or no impact on users," Huang says. "Understanding the problem is an important step in finding ways to make these prostheses more reliable."

To address the issue, the researchers had study subjects use a customized prosthetic device that was programmed to make errors. This was done in a lab setting that allowed Huang's team to monitor each user's balance and biomechanics. Users were also asked how stable they felt during each trial.

The researchers found that some errors were so insignificant that users didn't even notice them - particularly errors that were short in duration or that occurred when a user's weight was not being applied to the prosthetic leg.

But errors that lasted longer, or that occurred when a user's weight was on the prosthetic limb, were more noticeable. The researchers also determined that critical, or especially noticeable, errors were also characterized by a large "mechanical work change," meaning the prosthetic limb thought it had to do significantly more or less work than the user intended.

"One of the things we'll be doing as we move forward with this work is seek ways to limit that mechanical work change," Huang says.

"Any system that involves a human interface will have occasional errors," Huang notes. "But we think we can find ways to make those errors effectively insignificant."

The paper, "Effects of Locomotion Mode Recognition Errors on Volitional Control of Powered Above-Knee Prostheses," is published in early view online in the journal IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. The paper was co-authored by Ming Liu, a laboratory manager in the joint biomedical engineering program. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grants number 1406750 and 1361549, by the Department of Defense under grant number W81XWH-09-2-0020, and by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research under grant number H133G130308.