Prevention of pressure ulcers

Experts all agree that it is far easier to prevent bed sore than to treat them. However, easier does not necessarily mean easy. With the appropriate measures, patients and medical staff can significantly reduce the risk of developing pressure ulcers.

The Mayo Clinic, USA, recommends that patients and medical staff develop a plan that all can follow; this must include position changes, supportive devices, routine skin inspections and good diet. Continue Reading »

Troops Change Lives With Wheelchair Donations

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq, Oct. 14, 2009 – U.S. troops and reconstruction team members in Iraq’s Basra province completed what some say was a small task with a huge impact on improving the lives of some Iraqi families with disabled children.

In a combined humanitarian aid effort, members from the 308th Civil Affairs Brigade, 17th Fires Brigade, 34th Infantry Division and the provincial reconstruction team distributed 20 wheelchairs to children with special needs at the Moosawii Private Hospital in Basra. Continue Reading »

Survey on wheelchair user experiences

Research analysts at UConn invite individuals who use wheelchairs to participate in this survey and share thoughts and opinions pertaining to wheelchair use. Responses will remain confidential and will provide valuable insight into current needs in an effort to promote the development of improved wheelchair services and technologies. The survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete and consists of about 40 questions. Continue Reading »

October is National Disability Employment Awareness month

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Below is the official government explanation of what that is. The question is, what does that mean to you. If you’re not injured, maybe it’s, “Wow, that would be a hassle.”

If you are injured and unemployed (Household income for those who reported being paralyzed is heavily skewed towards lower income brackets and is significantly lower than household income for the country as a whole as reported by the U.S. Census — from our Paralysis Population survey.) Continue Reading »

Redefining ‘Cured’

A spinal-cord-injury activist puts a new priority on living with—not fighting—paralysis.

Ever since 1988, wheelchairs have figured into Alan T. Brown’s dreams. That was the year his neck was crushed by an ocean wave at a Club Med in Martinique. He was 20 years old, young and single and free, and in one second went from a vibrant college student to a quadriplegic, with no movement below his chest. The dreams began almost instantly, usually with the wheelchair off to one side, Brown standing nearby. “In the beginning, I was convinced I would walk again—1,000 percent,” says Brown, now 42, who runs his own public-relations company in Hollywood, Fla. “My old mottos were ‘There’s light at the end of the tunnel’ and ‘Never say never.’ I did think there was going to be a cure.” Continue Reading »

Regaining independence after being paralyzed at 17

On March 13, 1991, while preparing for a motorcycle race competition, my bike collided with a rock and my life changed forever. I was airlifted to a Boston hospital, where the emergency room physician told me that I had severed my spinal cord and that I would never walk again.

I had been racing motorcycles for 11 years and had incurred numerous minor injuries, but I never thought I’d be permanently injured. I felt absolutely helpless, like there was no one in the world who could do anything to help. Continue Reading »

Wheelchair Cushion Sage

Wheelchair Cushion Sage offers discount pricing on many of the world’s best seating solutions.

Japan robotics experts unveil sci-fi wheelchair

Robotics and medical experts in Japan on Wednesday unveiled the prototype of a new hi-tech electric wheelchair that resembles a scooter and promises greater mobility.

Users ride astride the four-wheeled Rodem — rather than sitting in it, as in a conventional wheelchair — steer it with a joystick and hold onto motorbike-style handles while the knees and chest rest on cushions. Continue Reading »

Climbing Mountains

K. Eric Larson and a few pals had planned a mountain climbing trip to Mount Rainier when the idea hit him: turn the trip into a fundraiser for spinal-cord injuries and call it “Climb for a Cause.”

Larson, a graduate of Henry-Senachwine High School, had a public-relations business in the Chicago area with a niche in hospitals and health care. He’d also been volunteering for the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, that readily agreed to the fundraiser and accepted nearly $15,000 when he returned from Seattle.

“That climb had a lot of impact on me personally. It was the most physical thing I’d ever done,” Larson said. “I thought, ‘I want to do something more with this.’” Continue Reading »

Quadriplegics Can Operate Powered Wheelchair With Tongue Drive System

An assistive technology that enables individuals to maneuver a powered wheelchair or control a mouse cursor using simple tongue movements can be operated by individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries, according to the results of a recently completed clinical trial.

“This clinical trial has validated that the Tongue Drive system is intuitive and quite simple for individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries to use,” said Maysam Ghovanloo, an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Trial participants were able to easily remember and correctly issue tongue commands to play computer games and drive a powered wheelchair around an obstacle course with very little prior training.” Continue Reading »