A national business publication is looking to do a story on wheelchair trends. Does anyone have any ideas for good wheelchairs (futuristic, sports-adapted, fold-up, other, etc.) that I should look into in order to inform the reporter? She is also interested in what people with disabilities are saying about newfangled chairs and their functionality. Please let me know - you can comment here or email me at suzanne@abledbody.com. Thank you, Suzanne

Leading home retailer IKEA has become the first store of its kind in the UK to have a Changing Places toilet in-store. The group’s Edinburgh outlet has just opened the toilet, which will enable anyone regardless of ability and mobility to enjoy the store.  

The new facility has been designed and installed by Total Hygiene, the UK’s top specialist in disabled toileting provision. It is purpose designed to be ‘bigger and better’ than conventional accessible (Document M) toilets, being large enough to accommodate a wheelchair and up to two carers, and featuring equipment including a wetfloor shower area, and ‘Changing Places’ standard fixtures of overhead hoist, peninsula toilet, basin and height adjustable changing bench.

Elizabeth Stanton of IKEA Edinburgh, explained, “At the IKEA Group, we believe that taking responsibility for people is a prerequisite for doing good business. We currently have 42 people with a disability on work experience at IKEA Edinburgh and we are very proud to say that 20 have gained employment at the store. The decision to install a ‘Changing Places’ toilet was entirely our own, in our desire to create something to benefit our co-workers as well as our customers.”

‘Changing Places’ toilets have been developed by the ‘Changing Places Changing Lives consortium, to enable people with a disability to ‘go to the loo’ in a clean and safe environment when out. Research shows that hundreds of thousands of people feel trapped in their own homes by lack of appropriate toilets in public locations. To date, the campaign- sponsored by Total Hygiene (Clos-o-Mat)- has seen almost 250 ‘Changing Places’ toilets installed across the UK.  

Is there a group in the US that does similar work? Seems like there should be!

From Architect News UK: http://www.architectnews.co.uk/changing-places-at-ikea-cms-1767 

One of our contributors to abledbody.com, Lisa Cape Lilienthal, is a paraplegic and uses a wheelchair. She wrote this powerful post that really sheds light on Target's attempt to make their campaigns more inclusive. Here's an excerpt:

 I get the call from Target, who had me on file after a go-see in August 2009, when they were looking for kids with disabilities to consider for future ad work. I took my son, Cooper, who has Down syndrome (and the cutest smile this side of the Mississippi) and when we showed up, the photographer was all, “Hey — two for one — mom, you get in the picture too! And who is that pretty girl with you – big sister, step on in the shot!” So somewhere in Target corporate is a file hanging around with photos of myself and my kids, and someone flagged me for this shoot this week. Great, I thought, I’ll go be token wheelchair girl!

Only I wasn’t. Token wheelchair girl, that is. As it turns out, my shot was essentially a head and shoulders shot, with nary a wheel in sight. As that realization dawned on me, I was even more impressed with Target’s progressive model search — they not only looked for my chair, but beyond it. Target, for that, I will be even more indebted to you than I already am, as you can tell by a glance at my AmEx statement each month. And I even forgive you for the helmet hair that your fabulous hairdresser bestowed upon me, saying that I looked “fierce.” 

 For the full article go here: http://abledbody.com/profoundlyyours/2011/01/31/proud-to-be-token-wheelchair-girl/ 

In an astonishing feat that underscores the power of technology to enable people with disabilities, software engineer Hank Torres took the stage at the Assistive Technology Industry Association conference on Friday and typed a sentence without the use of his hands in just over a minute, beating the clock to win the Guinness World Record. Torres, who has been a C4-C5 quadriplegic for more than 30 years after a hang gliding accident,  typed his way to triumph using Swype, a gesture-based keyboard, and TrackerPro, a head-operated mouse that follows the movement of a reflective dot on his eyeglasses and allows him to point and click to replace a normal computer mouse.

Torres used TrackerPro to input the word patterns on a Swype keyboard using a computer running Windows 7. Though it took three tries, he wowed the audience with his almost perfect rendering of a sentence about piranhas in 83.09 seconds. “Swype has opened a whole new road of communications that before was very difficult or frustrating at times,” Torres says. (TrackerPro now comes bundled with the Swype keyboard for those interested in purchasing it.)

Torres, a graduate software engineer from the University of Illinois, recalls first attending college and typing “with two splints with pencil erasers to depress the keys or type on a keyboard.” Today, he has received four patents, most of which were written using Swype.

Swype was developed by two assistive technology experts, Cliff Kushler and Randy Marsden. Kushler is the co-inventor of T9, a predictive text-entry solution for mobile phones, and Marsden is the President and CEO of Madentec, which created Tracker, the Microsoft onscreen keyboard, and other alternative-input products for the computer. It is available on Android phones and tablets including the new Samsung Galaxy.

Torres’ accomplishment on Friday went far beyond Guinness World Record accolades. The standing ovation he received for his success heralded a clearer sense of purpose among the ATIA crowd, which included hundreds of manufacturers of life-changing assistive technologies and devices. For this group, their mission and life’s work — to improve the lives of people with disabilities — had once been again reaffirmed and celebrated.

Five years ago, two Norwegian entrepreneurs, Svein Idso and Skjalg Aabakken, attended Rehacare in Dusseldorf -- one of the largest exhibits for assistive technology -- to look for a suitable patient lift that would work in Idso's 10th floor apartment. Aabakken and Isdo, who is a wheelchair user, couldn't find what they needed. Even the best designed ceiling lifts looked like a "power tool … and why would anyone want a power tool hanging over their bed?", asked Aabakken.

So Aabakken, a product developer and designer who has created products ranging from stoves to remote controls for older people, and Idso wanted to create a brand-new lift. In Norway, the government delivers health and home care to every person who needs it. They talked to nurses, who told them the barriers they face when trying to help transfer patients from their bed to their wheelchair and vice versa. 

Watch the YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2WrrmMOTEw&NR=1

First, the big sling tended to be hidden away so it was difficult for nurses to locate them. Also, in areas like nursing homes where there's a large rotation of caregivers, the batteries often ran out and nobody took responsibility for changing them. And most importantly, nurses felt that families didn't like to install large ceiling patient lifts, instead opting for a mobile hoist that could be put into the closet.

In doing research Idso and Aabakken found that for safety reasons, the actual time in the sling should be kept to a minimum.  They decided to make a system powered by a German motor with a large lifting range, but without the ability for users to independently move from room to room, to minimize risk. They also wanted a system that would never run out of batteries, be easy to install and ultimately just look like a nice piece of furniture in a typical bedroom -- following the concepts of universal design. Viola, the Integralift was born.

Today Integralift comes in many colors, and can be integrated with bedroom furniture. It can even be built with a bookshelf. And Idso and Aabakken's company, named Integra, is now hoping to roll out the product to hotel chains, which have a requirement in many countries -- including the Americans with Disabilities Act in the U.S. -- to offer their guests with disabilities access to a transfer lift so they can get into and out of their beds. One interested hotel chain, Rica, is based in Norway, where Integra already has a local distributor.

"The IntegraLift s a new and unique system. We believe it delivers dignity, respect, efficiency for both the user and for the workplace of the caregiver," says Aabakken. And it's one cool piece of universally designed furniture, too.
If you know any hotels that might like to use Integralift, please let the company know by emailing them at  info@integracp.com 

Hi everyone!

I'm really excited to join the blogging community here. As my bio mentions, I'm a writer on assistive tech and disability issues, and my book came out last January. So much has changed since then and I look forward to addressing new and innovative technologies on this blog. I'll be attending the Assistive Technology Industry Association conference in Orlando next week and if there's any specific device you're looking for please let me know and I'll try to hunt it down. Here's a list of exhibitors:  
http://www.goeshow.com/atia/orlando/2011/exhibitor_list.cfm