Tag Archives: physical limitations

Home accessibility

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Whether it’s an unexpected injury or a birth condition, a temporary disAbility or something you’ve been dealing with your entire life, a physical limitation can make all the difference in how a person completes his/her everyday tasks. Something as simple as entering and exiting your home can become challenging if your home has not been properly assessed and made accessible for those with disAbilities. In order to make sure your home is as welcoming and as accessible as possible, we encourage you follow these tips for transforming your habitat.

Entry Ramps and Lifts
From one step to one flight, stairs are a difficult hurdle and hazardous to a person living with a disAbility. Entry ramps or wheelchair lifts can be permanent or portable solutions for homes in need of becoming wheelchair accessible, providing ease of access into the house. Entry ramps prove to be especially beneficial when carrying heavy luggage, groceries or moving furniture. Aside from allowing a wheelchair user to easily enter and exit the building, ramps offer convenience to guests wheeling strollers or using walkers.

Handrails and Support Bars
Installing handrails and support bars along staircases, bathtubs, toilets and other areas where a person with a disAbility may struggle without them is an easy way to make your home more accessible. Make sure handrails following staircases extend beyond the first and last steps, providing maximum support. You can also purchase floor-to-ceiling poles and install them at various locations throughout the home. Placing these poles adjacent to couches ease in day-to-day movement through the space. They are designed to aid those with disAbilities in standing, sitting or transferring to/from a wheelchair.

Mind Your Floors
Cluttered hallways, loose rugs and high thresholds can be a danger to someone trying to maneuver through the building in a wheelchair. Try to keep your traffic areas free from unnecessary decorations such as side tables and rugs that cannot be secured to the floor. Plush carpets may also prove to be a hindrance for someone with a disAbility, so use hardwood or tiled floors wherever possible. Additionally, you can purchase flat thresholds at hardware stores, which make transferring from carpeted to non-carpeted areas less of a hazard.

Home accessibility

Leave a reply

Whether it’s an unexpected injury or a birth condition, a temporary disAbility or something you’ve been dealing with your entire life, a physical limitation can make all the difference in how a person completes his/her everyday tasks. Something as simple as entering and exiting your home can become challenging if your home has not been properly assessed and made accessible for those with disAbilities. In order to make sure your home is as welcoming and as accessible as possible, we encourage you follow these tips for transforming your habitat.

Entry Ramps and Lifts
From one step to one flight, stairs are a difficult hurdle and hazardous to a person living with a disAbility. Entry ramps or wheelchair lifts can be permanent or portable solutions for homes in need of becoming wheelchair accessible, providing ease of access into the house. Entry ramps prove to be especially beneficial when carrying heavy luggage, groceries or moving furniture. Aside from allowing a wheelchair user to easily enter and exit the building, ramps offer convenience to guests wheeling strollers or using walkers.

Handrails and Support Bars
Installing handrails and support bars along staircases, bathtubs, toilets and other areas where a person with a disAbility may struggle without them is an easy way to make your home more accessible. Make sure handrails following staircases extend beyond the first and last steps, providing maximum support. You can also purchase floor-to-ceiling poles and install them at various locations throughout the home. Placing these poles adjacent to couches ease in day-to-day movement through the space. They are designed to aid those with disAbilities in standing, sitting or transferring to/from a wheelchair.

Mind Your Floors
Cluttered hallways, loose rugs and high thresholds can be a danger to someone trying to maneuver through the building in a wheelchair. Try to keep your traffic areas free from unnecessary decorations such as side tables and rugs that cannot be secured to the floor. Plush carpets may also prove to be a hindrance for someone with a disAbility, so use hardwood or tiled floors wherever possible. Additionally, you can purchase flat thresholds at hardware stores, which make transferring from carpeted to non-carpeted areas less of a hazard.

The Connected Wheelchair

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While most of the population is busy gawking about the new gadgets released by Apple, Intel in partnership with the award-winning theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking quietly presented something that can be dubbed as the Next-Big-Thing: the connected wheelchair.

Intel showcased the connected wheelchair in its annual Development Conference which was held in San Francisco. In the press release, Intel gave details about the concept of the new wheelchair design.

The concept of the connected wheelchair was intelligently designed by a team of Intel’s engineering interns through the company’s Collaborators Program. The connected wheelchair is currently being developed and improved by Intel’s Internet of Things department. The creation of this equipment is intended to transform standard and conventional wheelchairs into data driven, connected devices or machines.

Here are some of the amazing and intelligent features of the connected wheelchair:

  • The wheelchair is able to absorb or acquire essential biometric information from the user. – The equipment is capable of gathering biometric data or measuring the health of the user. It can measure the vital signs such as heart rate, body temperature and blood pressure. The biometric measurements are then displayed on touch screens that are attached to the wheelchair.
  • The wheelchair is designed to take mechanical information from the machine itself that can be analyzed. – The data acquired can be used in addition to the biometric information gathered. The data taken about the wheelchair are also essential to know the status of the machine as well.
  • The connected wheelchair comes with an app. – The app that is in synced with the connected machine allows users to quickly and efficiently map, evaluate and rate the accessibility of different areas and new locations.

With these wonderful features, users can monitor important information about their health, the status of the equipment, and the accessibility of an area or place they are going to visit. Through knowing such vital information, there will be significant improvement in the user’s day to day living.

Internationally acclaimed physicist Stephen Hawking, whose life story will be told in the upcoming biopic drama “The Theory of Everything”, has worked with Intel experts and engineers for more than ten years already and he said that the connected wheelchair is a wonderful invention and an ideal example of how technology can greatly help people with disabilities and physical limitations.

To Hawking, medicine cannot cure his condition, therefore he relies on technology to make his daily activities attainable. Hawking showcases the connected wheelchair and the things the equipment is capable of doing in an Intel video.

Many might be in awe of the new iPhones and gadgets introduced by Apple. But more will be amazed of Intel’s new connected wheelchair that will not just help Hawking but people across the globe.