A stairlift (or chair lift) is a motor-powered chair that moves along a track on a straight or curved staircase. Indoor and outdoor models are available on the market. Persons with limited mobility can sit on the lift chair and travel up or down the stairs. In most cases, a person can operate a button or a switch that is located near or on the armrest of the chair. It is battery operated so you can use during a power outage. It is usually installed to the treads of the stairs and not the wall. You can fold up the stairlift’s arms, seat, and footrest when it is not in use.
Unfortunately Medicare does not cover stairlifts. It is recommend that you ask yourself some questions before you select a stairlift that is right for you such as: Temporary or permanent, what size (weight), type of stairs you have, a door close to your stairs, swivel seats, safety belts, battery backup, foot rest, folding rails, etc. You may have an option of trying different stairlifts in a showroom or rent one for a while, depending on the manufactures.
Some companies offer products to install by yourself ($1500 – $3000). According to Home Adviser, the national average of stairlift installation by a professional costs between $2400 and $6000.
Holiday season is just around corner. For the many upcoming occasions, you may find the following wearable camera or a camera with accessories (i.e. vest) may allow a person, who has difficulty holding a camera, take pictures more easily. The following are some examples of wearable cameras.
Pushrim-propelled wheelchairs are light and easy to use indoors because of their good indoor maneuverability but are not as easy to get around outdoors. Electric Attachable Handcycle for Wheelchair may benefit manual wheelchair users who like to go outdoors often or need to travel an extended distance daily. Electric Attachable Handcyle converts a manual wheelchair into a motorized wheelchair capable of speeds up to 12 mph.
Some users stated that electric handcycle wheelchair can help them steer their wheelchairs easily outdoors, travel faster, and handle bumpy terrain better. Although the speed slows down on steep hills, and the performance is poor on grass surface, users enjoy more independence and freedom. Feedback about its disadvantages are: these electric handcycle wheelchair attachments are expensive, assembling mechanism may be difficult for some users, insurance companies may not cover the cost, and repairs may be a challenge if it breaks down, and accidents (i.e. falling) may occur more often due to its increased speed. It may require assistance to connect and disconnect the handcyle attachment from your wheelchair. However, it may be an effective solution for the active wheelchair users to get around outdoors.
It is recommended that you find out if they offer a loaner for a trial period before you purchase and what type of maintenance and support are available after the purchase. Some product information through online may not be updated frequently, and the customer services and support may vary (i.e. imported products).
A much more costly option, but you may find that adding a device called the SmartDrive electric power system onto your manual wheelchair may also fit to your daily activities. Here is a comparison between SmartDrive MX2 vs Rio Mobility Firefly.
There are many low-tech and affordable devices can help persons with disabilities improve their independence. The following are a few examples of low-tech options, which can be helpful for persons with mobility and lower body challenges in daily activities such as getting up and down from a sitting position, moving your legs, putting socks, etc.
If you have elderly or family members who have difficulty to get up from a sofa because of their age or a surgery (i.e. Achilles tendon repair), the assistive device like Able Life Universal Stand may allow them to stand up independently. According to its specification, it supports the weight of up to 300 lbs., and it comes with height adjustable legs and handles. It is supplied with an assist bar to stand easily from most couches, chairs, or recliners. Able Life Universal Stand costs around $79, considerably less than an expensive lift chair.
Universal Stand Assist – Able Life
(YouTube video by Able Life)
A Leg Lifter strap can help persons who are recovering from leg or hip surgery or suffering from arthritis. This low-tech device helps the person’s affected leg be maneuvered into place and safely re-positioned.
How to Get Out of Bed Easier Using a Leg Lifter
(YouTube video by Adaptive Equipment Corner)
The Sock Assist Device is another low-tech option to help persons who are recovering from surgery such as knee replacement or those with limited mobility. Those who have difficulty reaching toes and putting on socks have found this device to be very useful. Some people have found it difficult to follow the instructions or the size may be too large. However, as it only costs around $10 – $20, it is probably worth a trial.
Sock Assist by Vive – Stocking Puller Assistant Aid – Compression Sock Helper Elderly, Pregnant
This invention helps people put on their socks without bending down.
(YouTube video by Insider)
Smartglasses or smart glasses are wearable computer glasses that provide additional information alongside to what the wearer sees (i.e. Wikipedia article).
Most of manufactures that develop smart glasses focus on including features such as clear pictures, videos, music, light weight, long battery life, light level adjustments, styles, and have compatibility to run on multiple devices with different operating systems. I am not a user of smart glasses, but I am always interested in accessibility that these glasses on the market can provide or what kinds of features are included to help persons with special needs. Visually impaired persons require additional features from smart glasses. I posted a blog about one smart glasses products, OrCam, in January, 2018. Cyber Eyez (Cyber Times) apps running on Vuzix M300 smart glasses is another accessibility option that may be suitable for persons who are visually impaired. Both smart glasses can recognize objects, personal items and people’s faces and read it back, but one of the differences between these two products is that Cyber Eyez can magnify up to 15X.
However, Cyber Eyez may require additional improvements such as a larger display screen for persons with very limited vision.
Cyber Eyez features include:
Real-time Magnification up to 15x.
Read to Text (OCR) for over 100 languages with or without internet connection. Take a picture and read it back.
Computer Vision based real-time bar code scanner with ability to find and read a bar code in less than one second.
Recognize over 16 billion objects with machine learning.
Identify over 1,500 colors with machine learning. It gives the shades of colors by using the percentage of the colors.
Sense moods on faces to know if they are happy, sad, angry, etc.
Most users seem to find that smart glasses benefit them to be more independent in their daily activities. Unfortunately smart glasses are still priced high especially for the glasses with additional features (i.e. CyberEyez – above $2400 ).
As you may have noticed, many students prefer to learn in digital learning environments today. Take for example, in learning math (mathematics), students may have difficulties to comprehend the relationship between a number and a graph on a piece of a paper. Calculators can be helpful for some students, but parents and teachers may still need more effective methods to help learners in solving math problems. Online tools and apps may be able to motivate students to tackle math problems and more closely match their learning style. Here are some online examples that are available to use for free.
It is an online drawing and graphing tool. You can type in an equation, and the geogebra tool draws its graph on screen. You can export the graph and review it later. In addition, if you draw a shape or line within the virtual graph paper, Geogebra will convert it into an equation. The tool also has a built-in calculator.
Webmath is an online calculator and problem solver web site that answers to specific math questions and problems such as counting coins, calculating area, solving calculus equations. Webmath provides the answer, but also the tool gives you a step-by-step explanation of solving the problem.
I have found the Wolfram Alpha online tool interesting. It covers variety of subjects in Mathematics, Science & Technology, Society & Culture, and Everyday Life.
For example, I typed the following questions and returned the answers.
population of DC =
693,972 (2017)
cube root of 109 =
4.776856181035016
Today’s technology offers everyone the ability to solve problems that used to be difficult and often require the assistance of a STEM graduate. These online tools can replace the expense of a $100+ graphing calculator with the same or even superior capability and offer a step-by-step solution for many types of problems.
According to Ekso Bionics, each year as many as 500,000 individuals experience a spinal cord injury and 15 million others suffer a stroke. So when I saw a trailer of the Avengers with Iron Man, I thought it would be exciting if a wearable device could help persons with disabilities gain their mobility and independence.
Ekso Bionics is developing wearable devices to help the recovery process within a clinical setting. EksoGT is a robotic wearable exoskeleton, which is an FDA approved product for individuals with hemiplegia due to stroke. Over 200 clinical centers worldwide use EKsoGT for their patients during their rehabilitation treatments. Ekso Bionics clinical studies indicate that their EksoGT gait training rehabilitation for stroke victims improves their functional mobility and may improve walking without the device. In addition, Ekso Bionics developed eksoZeroG and eksoVest, which help productivity for construction workers and reduce their fatigue in the work environment.
EksoGT (Clinical Rehabilitation setting)
Patient Selection Examples for Rehabilitation using Medical EksoGT
(Taken from YouTube)
Deaf or hard-of-hearing persons have challenges in communicating with others in their daily life. Especially in a group conversation settings such as meetings or social gatherings with friends and family, it is difficult for them to participate in conversations. If your closest friends, coworkers, and relatives are open to trying a solution for deaf or hard-of-hearing persons, an app called “AVA” will help to increase their involvement and encourage their interactions. Expanding and encouraging to create an environment to include deaf and hard-of-hearing persons in social, work, and school settings is essential.
Ava offers two plans. You can join Ava conversations for a free or a paid plan. The free plan allows 1 or more friends to use for up to 5 hours per month. The other plan is real-time captioning with 1 or more friends, with no monthly limit for $29.99/mo. Ava can understand and transcribe 12 spoken languages: English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Thai, Chinese, German, Italian, and Norwegian.
To use Ava, you need to install the app on your smartphone (i.e. iPhone/Android) and will need to create an account and allow access to your camera on your phone. You can use the app on one-on-one conversation on your phone or you can use it in a group setting. In a group setting, it is best to ask others to install on their smartphones. Within the app, use the option of sending “invite” from your contacts. Then a written text will be sent to the person with instructions of how to install AVA app. Or if you are in the same room and would like to speed up to add people, you can use the QR code button on top-right and share the QR code to each person. Next time you can just tap “green Connect” to include the person in the conversation.
Some users reported that the accuracy is not 100% and depends on how you use the app. For example, the distance of about a foot from the speaker is about 85-95% accuracy. The noise and the accent of the speaker and rapid speech may reduce this accuracy rate. Use of wired microphone may increase the accuracy. In addition, captions are normally displayed between 1-3 seconds after words are spoken; however, if you have a slow internet connection, you may experience a delay in captioning.
The following are a YouTube video of this app, AVA, and its installation/configuration instructions.
The Mount’n Mover is one of the products offered by BlueSky Designs Company, which have designed inventive accessible solutions for making the impossible, possible, since 1997. Many wheelchairs users with their limited mobility face challenges in their daily activities even when they are at home. Many tasks such as eating, accessing computers, and reading can be a challenge.
The Mount’n Mover mounting systems offer flexible and accessible mounting solutions when your need to attach devices on trays on wheelchairs, tables, beds, or floor stands. The mounting systems have custom memory locks with multiple tilt angles with moving and rotating mechanisms. Quick release Plate allows you to attach different types of plates for table, phone, computer, speech devices (AAC) and EyeGaze systems. In addition, the mounting systems can be used not only on your wheelchair, but so you can quickly detach and transport it from the Wheelchair Mount, a bed floor stand, or TableClamp without any tools.
Transporting your Mount’n Mover: Floor stand to Wheelchair to TableClamp (YouTube video)
Mount’n Mover Dual Arm Overview (YourTube)
Their website currently shows five options: Dual Arm, Single Arm, Tilt’n Turner, Simple Mount Small, and Simple Mount Large. Which model should you get? You can find more information at the following URL: https://www.mountnmover.com/products/mounts
OrCam MyEye 2.0 device is a smart camera about the size of a finger and a microphone attached to a pair of glasses. The device can read printed materials such as books menu, labels, and signs. When the user points a finger at text, the device activates the text-recognition technology and reads aloud what’s in front of the camera. In addition, OrCam can read digital text on computers, smartphones and has money, color, and face recognition features. MyEye 2 can store up to 100 faces such as your friends, family and co-workers and can also store up to 150 of items of your choice.
OrCam MyEye 2.0 – 2018 ((YouTube video by OrCam, December 2017)
I posted a blog about OrCam in 2016 as a prototype among Smart glasses, but as of last year, 2017, it has reported approximately 5,000 users around the world. According to feedback from some users, the intonation or emphasis of the voice from the OrCam is awkward and has very little rhythm so it may not be comfortable for listening over a long period of time. However, others state that the device helps them be more independent in daily tasks and improves family interactions such as reading a bedtime story for their children. One mother used OrCam to read the page and then said it aloud to her children (2017, The Guardian). Unfortunately the prices are still too high (i.e. $3500 – $4500) for many people. Here is more information about OrCam MyEye 2.0.
