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Assistive Technology
Inventor Dean Kamen takes his iBOT 4000 Mobility System
down the stairs of the New York City subway system.
Misc.
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE: The Right Equipment
DIRECTOR’S NOTES: Tools for Living
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Twelve Actions
PROGRAM NOTES: December 2006
DEVELOPMENT: More Lasting Gifts This Holiday Season
MEMBERSHIP & OUTREACH: Associate Memberships Available
LEGISLATIVE NEWS: December 2006
Missouri Stem Cell Victory
Social Security Announces Cost of Living Increases for 2007
RESEARCH FRONT: December 2006
Universities to Study Wheelchair Transportation Safety
Exercise Cycles Promote Exercise in Children with SCI
Myelin Study Provides Hope in Treatment of MS [...]
I would like to propose a little test for all of us to take. Start when you get up in the morning. You will need something to write with and something to write on. Notice I didn’t say pen and paper, since some of us use other means to write, such as a computer or even a recorder.
Here is the test: Every time you use any adaptive equipment, mark down what it is. I myself started out with a pen with a special grip. While dressing, I used a button-hook for my shirt buttons, a device for my socks, and elastic shoe [...]
People with SCI/D often develop very strong bonds with their “equipment,” because it is so much more than mere nuts and bolts—it is an essential tool for our hard-won independence. Regrettably, access to the tools we need—particularly power wheelchairs and scooters—cannot be taken for granted and this access is currently under assault by ever-more restrictive policies from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
I was looking through past issues of Action while assembling the list of member miniprofiles that appears on page 38, and I had a strange sensation of being in a time machine. I remember talking to some of those members who were profiled last spring as though I had just spoken to them last week.
And yet, as we close this final issue of Action’s first year, I am amazed at how much has transpired within these pages in just 12 months. Thinking about all the subjects we’ve covered-winter and summer sports, accessible home modifications, working with a spinal cord disorder, traveling [...]
DEVELOPMENT: More Lasting Gifts This Holiday Season
In the spirit of the holiday season, United Spinal Association is calling upon all Americans to remember our nearly one million fellow citizens with spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, and or other disorders of the spinal cord.
“It’s a season of giving and we urge everyone to consider meaningful and lasting gifts,” said Executive Director Paul J. Tobin. “We can change an entire life forever with the gift of our time and our money to help individuals with spinal cord injury or disease.”
Missouri Stem Cell Victory
Missouri voters approved the Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative on Election Day, making it a new Missouri State Constitutional Amendment. The amendment protects equal access to any federally approved stem cell research treatments while banning human cloning. It essentially prevents the Missouri Legislature from passing a law that is more restrictive than federal stem cell policy. United Spinal, along with more than 100 patient and medical groups, is a member of the nonpartisan coalition that initiated and promoted this stem cell initiative.
The federal government will only fund embryonic stem cell using research stem cell lines [...]
Universities to Study Wheelchair Transportation Safety
The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and three other university partners have been awarded a $4.5 million five-year federal grant to continue research on transportation safety and usability for people in wheelchairs.
The U.S. Department of Education’s National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research has renewed funding of the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Wheelchair Transportation Safety (RERC WTS), a partnership headed by UMTRI that also includes the universities of Pittsburgh, Louisville and Colorado.
The partnership was originally formed in 2001 to advance the safety, usability and independence of the large proportion of 1.7 million wheelchair [...]
Dean Kamen invented what he calls “the world’s most sophisticated robot” to transport people with mobility impairments places they never thought they could go.
By Lori A. Wood
A wonder of modern technology, the Independence® iBOT® 4000 Mobility System, allows people with disabilities to go places that they may have never imagined. “It took some of the smartest engineers in the world about ten years to make that happen,” says Dean Kamen, founder and president of DEKA Research and Development in Manchester, New Hampshire.
“I spent my whole life building medical equipment,” Kamen says. This equipment included wearable infusion pumps for [...]
Randy Kwapis’s Action Chair, which he invented for his son to play on grass and other difficult surfaces, is a modern marvel.
By Michael Lee
Matthew Kwapis sits in the chair his father Randy designed to enable him to play on grass and other surfaces unusable by ordinary wheelchairs.
Randy Kwapis, 43, inventor of the Action Chair, a custom-built everyday sports wheelchair, was one of the 25 semi-finalists in this year’s Invent Now Challenge, sponsored by the History Channel program Modern Marvels. “Everyday” inventors from across the country submit their inventions in hopes of becoming the “Modern Marvel of the Year.” [...]
We’ve come a long way, baby, from the “devices” of yesteryear to today’s technology.
By Terry Moakley
Was assistive technology really around 60 years ago, Santa? Yes Virginia, it was, but we didn’t call it “assistive technology” way back then. We just called it a “device.”
One of the earlier devices was developed by one of our predecessor organization’s charter members, John M. Price, and it was an innovation based on need. You see, Mr. Price was also the original editor of The Paraplegia News magazine, and in its December 1946 issue, there is an illustration and brief description of this unique device [...]
By Lori A. Wood
“My son, Tom, was the company’s founder,” says Margaret Street, president of SEMCO, which stands for Street Electric Manufacturing Company, LLC, of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. “He passed away in June 2001 and that’s when I took over as the single member of the company.
“Tom had suffered an accident in October 1988, which left him a C-4 quadriplegic,” Street continues. “When he was in rehab, they didn’t have anything to enable quads to use a computer mouse, so he went looking around to see what was available in stores. He finally found a little flat mouse that a company called Interlink [...]
By Jean L. Minkel, MA, PT
How you get around has a big impact on what you can do and where you can go.
Many people who have lived with a disability for a long time have found that careful consideration of the best way to get around has been a key to their independence. For some people the solutions have included multiple devices—different environments, different devices—a manual wheelchair in the home, a scooter for work, and even a handcycle for exercise.
Mobility assistance equipment comes in many forms, shapes and sizes. The options include:
• Assistive devices for ambulation-items to help you [...]
By Josie Kelly
As the holidays approach, most of us fondly remember the games and toys of our childhood. The anticipation of tearing open wrapping paper to find a new toy, and the pleasure of mastering the new skills such toys represent, are universal. Children with disabilities are no different, even if the toys we found under our wrapping paper weren’t always the same as the toys of other kids. While “Big Wheels” were making a commotion roaming the sidewalks in my neighborhood in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was making my own noise on my “Sit ‘n’ Spin” and mesmerizing [...]
By Wendy Crawford and Cheryl Price
When you are sitting most of the time, there are some important points to remember for beautiful hair. Take the time to really think about what would work best for you. Decide on a great overall look, remember to be practical and resourceful, and the result will be a more beautifully-coifed you!
By Tamar Asedo Sherman
Thanks to technology, there are many devices that can increase, maintain or improve the functional capabilities of people with spinal cord impairments, enabling us to live independently and even return to work. If you can move anything—a finger, your mouth, your eyelid or your head—you can operate a computer. Technology is progressing so fast that there are few limitations that can’t be overcome.
By Rosemarie Rossetti, Ph.D.
Universal design is a framework for the design of living and working spaces and products benefiting the widest possible range of people in the widest range of situations without special or separate design. My husband Mark Leder and I have been applying its principles as we build our new home, the Universal Design Living Library (www.udll.com) in Columbus, Ohio, which I’ve written about in previous columns.
Ron Mace, an internationally renowned architect, product designer and educator, is credited with conceiving the term “universal design.” He founded the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University (www.design.ncsu.edu/cud) in Raleigh [...]
By Ed Lash
When a person is faced with serious illness, it’s very common to lose self-confidence and self-esteem. It sometimes makes you feel inadequate, probably because illness makes you feel that your body is inadequate. When we have been well for a long time we have a tendency to get overconfident, thinking we are immortal, with super powers over health and believing we’ll never get sick, at least not seriously. Then we get a bad case of the flu or even a common cold, and it brings us back down to earth. A chronic illness such as multiple sclerosis (MS), however, especially [...]
By Kathleen M. Muldoon
Yvette Silver www.yvettesilver.com
When I was 13, I felt like a prisoner. The only time I went outdoors was to walk to and from school. Otherwise, I sat in the classroom or inside our tiny apartment. I wasn’t being grounded; instead, a series of crises had affected my family, which consisted of my mother, grandmother, and me.
Ever since I could remember, my mom had been an invalid. She had a severe mental illness that left her in a strange zombie-like state. By the time I turned 13, someone had to stay with Mom at all times. Gran [...]
By Tom Scott
United Spinal Wheelchair Football Team Has New Home
The United Spinal Giants wheelchair football team is proud to have a new home field. The Giants will now be practicing and competing at Victory Field in Forest Park, New York. In coordination with the City of New York Parks and Recreation, United Spinal unveiled the field on Thursday, November 16th. It is the first wheelchair football field in New York State. Check out the next issue of Action for more about the event. Wheelchair football is adapted from flag football—one-hand touch above the waist including the arm. The [...]
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