Rolling over pinecones

The wheelchair crunches leaves, grass, sandwich wrappers

Rolls over pinecones

Stuck midair on a tree root,

A precipice

It rights itself with a bang.

A squirrel nibbling a nut stares wide-eyed

Human television in the wild.

Got snow?

A wheelchair user shows his path from his house to the mailbox during a snowstorm.

My4Hands

Happy new year to everyone! I wish you all a happy and healthy year.

Today I'd like to pass along information about a product I just saw over on twitter. It's called My4Hands - and I'm going to post a video below to give you an idea how it works.

Shopping at a stationary Store from My4Hands on Vimeo.

I like the simplistic design and the affordable price tag on this one. Often I find myself needing to keep things that are hot or cold off my lap because I lack sensation and don't want to burn myself. I also need to be careful not to dislodge medical devices I sometimes wear. This product promotes independence which I'm all for too.

I haven't tried this product out, but I can imagine all kinds of uses for it around here! Here's the inventor talking about why he came up with the idea-

My Story - Why I created My4Hands from My4Hands on Vimeo.

Here's a link to a page to view more videos and to get more product information.



You can also find the inventor on twitter at @My4Hands

Fun with Wheelchairs - Drifting

What is there to say? A driveway, a tarp, water, a wheelchair user with imagination....

"What's Wrong With You?"

Kyle, a wheelchair user, talks about his reaction to this question.

Cool Wheelchair Costume

via tostie14

Pictured is a person in a wheelchair dressed as a Darth Vader Tie Fighter, wearing a black suit holding a light saber with two silver shields at each side of the chair attached by a bar across his/her waist.

ROLY - teaching kids with disabilities how to drive wheelchairs

A robotic wheelchair called the ROLY -robot assisted learning for young drivers -has been developed at the University of California by researchers. They are currently testing it in a group of nondisabled children and one child with cerebral palsy, hoping to lower the cost of teaching children with disabilities how to use wheelchairs. It will allow children to learn at their own pace with less assistance, substantially reducing the costs.

A photo showing how it works can be found here.

Instructors can provide assistance to the children, allowing them to progress at their own pace.

FreeWheel - all terrain third wheel for manual wheelchairs

Two of my friends who use manual chairs tried the FreeWheel out at the May disability expo and each bought one. The device can be stored behind your chair and attaches easily to the front, lifting the chair up for better clearance off road.



You can find more information here.

UPDATE: another video showing use of the FreeWheel

Wheelchairs are Liberating

"Confined to a wheelchair"

"Wheelchair bound"

How often do we hear these phrases or read them in newspaper articles?

Unfortunately, pretty often. But many wheelchair users don't feel that way. Gary Karp talks in this video about how he is liberated by his wheelchair.



I have spent time confined since I acquired my disability. There was the waiting period for a variance to get a ramp when my wheelchair couldn't get up and down the steps. That was being confined. There was the time before I was able to get my power chair and I couldn't push a manual chair, so I stayed in a recliner. That was being confined.

But I've never been confined by my wheelchair.

The word bound brings to mind action. I'm bound and determined to get things done, to go places to get inside places that present challenges or obstacles. But I'm not bound to a wheelchair. I'm in and out of it. It's not attached anywhere. It's a piece of equipment, a tool to achieve mobility. And yet it's seen so differently by some people.

I know my wheelchair is sometimes seen first, before I am. I can't control how people perceive me in my wheelchair or the assumptions they make. I can, however, hit the joystick and go full speed down empty sidewalks with my hair blowing in the wind.I can use my wheelchair to work, to play in the leaves, to travel, to shop, to visit friends, to eat out, to get where I need to go. Does that sound confining?

Wheelchair users find our own words to link to wheelchairs, which dispel those images that trap us in. Think of your wheelchair as a toy, says Aaron Fotheringham, as he does back flips in his. Some will think of a wheelchair as a gift, if they've been home bound.

I sometimes think of my wheelchair as a place for my cat to nap. Cats have good taste. The cushions are comfy.

The possibilities are unlimited.

Transfer: power chair to manual chair to power chair

This video does a great job showing how a person transfers and how the equipment affects that - various heights, armrests and footrests that have to be moved, etc.



It also dispels the myth that anyone is wheelchair bound. :)

Top Ten Things That Annoy People in Wheelchairs

In a recent poll done by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, wheelchair users were asked :

What do family, friends, and strangers do to you when you are using your chair that annoys you?

Here are their answers:



Patting me on my head. Don't. (I do my hair every morning.) 4.9%

Speaking slowly to me because I'm in a wheelchair. 3.2%

Being asked, "So if I shot you in the leg, you wouldn't feel it?" 0.9%

Not inviting me to an event because you are protecting me from some frustration. (Let me figure it out.) 4.8%

Able-bodied people parking in handicapped spaces. (So what if you have the tag!) 38.6%

Holding onto the back of my chair so I can't move. 4.2%

Talking over my head as if I'm not here. 8.3%

Accessible bathroom stalls being used by an able-bodied person. 12.7%

Congratulating me for things like going to the grocery store like it's worthy of an Olympic medal. .2%

Strangers asking what happened to me. 5.3%

Continuing to insist on helping me after I've said no thanks. 8.4%

Being asked if you want a shopping cart for your grocery bags. (How can I wheel my chair and push a shopping cart?) 0.3%

A restaurant hostess asking if I want a booth. 2.2%



After using a wheelchair for 17 years, I've experienced each of these things- more than once - and some of them on a fairly frequent basis. And although I've learned to handle some of these with humor or assertiveness skills ( e.g., when someone talks over my head, I immediately speak up to reinsert myself into the conversation), it's great to see a survey like this that can help people understand a wheelchair user's point of view.

Dear Wheelchairmaker

I ran across this creative video this morning.



Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.

I forgot to check with the cat....

...about the width of the new wheelchair.

Turns out it's not as wide as my old one and Buddy can't curl up and sleep in it. He's too.....fluffy.

I'm having some trouble pushing it but maybe Buddy can get behind and give me a nudge here and there.

[image description: My tuxedo longhair cat Buddy is shown seated in a wheelchair.]

Proposed change to Ohio's budget bill could threaten nursing home patients' access to complex wheelchairs

Those are the complex wheelchairs that are custom-made for patients such as paraplegics or those with multiple sclerosis who have moderate or severe physical challenges that can’t be met by standard wheelchairs. Industry members hear they could lose a direct reimbursement from Medicaid, see that amount cut and then diverted through nursing homes where many of their customers live.

Carol Gilligan, president of Health Aid of Ohio in Cleveland, spent the last two days in Columbus trying to find out about the behind-closed-doors addition to Ohio’s budget bill. Health Aid specializes in customizing, assembling and delivering the wheelchairs – a $15 million-a-year industry in Ohio, Gilligan said.

Under the proposed change, nursing homes would receive the Medicaid payments in a convoluted fee transaction with the state, Gilligan said. The wheelchairs would belong to the nursing homes, not the patients, she said. So if a patient left a nursing home, the wheelchair would stay behind.

Bundling these services for nursing home residents increases the expenses of the homes, enabling the state to qualify for more Medicaid dollars, Johnny Miller, homecare manager of Miller’s Sales & Rentals of Akron, told legislators during testimony on Tuesday.

Gilligan and others fear the change would make it next to impossible for nursing homes to afford the complex wheelchairs, which can range from $3,000 to $15,000.

What’s more, the change would devastate businesses in the industry. Gilligan said she would lay off 20 workers and Miller testified he would cut 25 to 35 of his 100 employees.


via medcitynews.com

Higher quality providers could be put out of business, legislators note, since the services would be bid on cost and failure to provide wheelchairs will leave people bedridden, resulting in costly medical complications.

Not to mention robbing them of any quality of life since people would have to leave their wheelchairs behind "if a patient changed providers or moved to PASSPORT or assisted living, their wheelchair would not move with them because it would belong to the nursing home.”

RoughRoller.com : Rolling through rough terrain, through a desert?

The Rough Roller Off Road wheelchair device is shown in these videos on both manual and power chairs. The Rough Roller device is a large ball that is attached to the front of the wheelchair, lifting it off the ground.

Manual wheelchair in deep sand:



Power chair on rough terrain:

The Quadster- a demo

Here's a device invented by Franklin Butts and David Gowan of Auburn University to attach to the front of a manual wheelchair called the Quadster.

via YouTube:
This versatile device easily attaches and detaches to a variety of manual wheelchairs to provide the option of an easily controlled electric assist motor. Contact Auburn University OTT (ott@auburn.edu) for technology and licensing information.

Wheelchair Diffusion blogs about the Tailwind Power Assist Wheelchair

I wanted to share information with my readers about a power assist wheelchair that Ziggi wrote about over at his informative blog Wheelchair Diffusion. He provides an excellent explanation of what power assist wheelchairs are.

These are power systems that are added to a manual wheelchair or come as a matched component of a manual wheelchair. They are used to improve mobility for people who have marginal pushing ability, to avoid shoulder injury or rest injured shoulders, and for those wheelchair users who require powered mobility in a compact transportable form.

The Tailwind is, apparently, the rebirth of the iGlide, with some important changes based on consumer feedback. It has more customization, for example, but go over and read about it on Wheelchair Diffusion.

Here's a few YouTube Videos of the Tailwind going up a steep hill.

Fun in wheelchairs

Logan's got it down pat...

[visual image description: The video shows three year old Logan in a wheelchair being pushed slightly up the sides of an incline - his wheelchair, which is yellow, rolls down and around as he smiles and laughs.]

and sometimes teens/young adults wheelchairsurf...
[image description: A young man in a wheelchair is lifted by a crowd at a concert onto the stage and then lifted back through the crowd before he gets back onto the stage and takes a bow.]

And for my next trick...

...it seems lately, from everyone I talk to, that everyone's in an intense work mode.

Maybe it's preparatory to Thanksgiving - trying to get everything done before the holiday. Could be the time of year. I notice after we turn the clocks back and it gets dark earlier that the lighter mood of summer lifts and its "down to business".

I've been running around, going from project to project, finishing things over there and starting things over here and realizing I'll be working over the weekend. That's okay- when I signed up to do what I do for a living, that was part of the agreement. I do what I have to in order to get work done and actually over the years there have been very few weekends when I haven't worked - at least part of them.

But this weekend I think I'll be putting in full time hours. And again that's not unusual since Thursday is Thanksgiving and I have to make that up.

However it does leave me feeling as if I'm juggling things. I used to cope badly with that but as I get older I've found that a sense of humor works much better. Maybe I've just developed more confidence that I'll get things done, having seen myself do it over and over again. Or maybe I have a different perspective.

When we were growing up, my Mom used to tell us over and over again to plan our education so we could find jobs we liked. She emphasized that we'd be at our jobs most of our day and needed to think about what we'd like to do. I've never regretted the extra years in school or the part time jobs I worked to put myself through, or the other sacrifices I made paying for my education. It was worth it.

I like my work. And I know that I'm lucky that I work at something I feel that way about.

Keeping that in mind, even when I feel as if I'm juggling, really makes it all seem worthwhile. Speaking of juggling, check out this wheelchair tree surgeon, who adds a flair to his work by juggling...an axe...

30 Days in a Wheelchair....

I found this video on YouTube , apparently Part I of a documentary prepared at a Michigan college by students who tried an experiment - two students were to use a wheelchair for 30 days, with some exceptions. (The rules are contained within the video.)

Their portrayal of the experience of using a wheelchair is almost completely negative. (Part 2, in my opinion, was even more negative and it's over there but I'm not going to post it.) Whether they realize it or not, they forgot to take into account numerous factors here. I'll explain below how that affects things. I also want to point out that projects where people are "disabled for a day" or even "30 days" aren't the same as being disabled, a point that's been made by others on the web.

I do think this video can work toward helping folks understand that adapting to a disability takes time. (Showing the first 30 days of anything is going to be a skewed view).

When you first use a wheelchair, you're not used to it. Naturally if you're pushing one, your muscles take time to develop. Also your environment needs to be adapted. So when they show a shot of a woman in a wheelchair who has a microwave oven over her head and is trying to find "something to eat and cook" from kitchen cabinets above her and she decides she can't do anything herself, that's a result of the environment, not being in a wheelchair.

However, some of their observations are interesting (and amusing) and, of course, I'm interested in readers' comments as usual, so thought I'd put this video up. Please note- violence alert- that the video opens with a re-enactment of a motor vehicle accident, showing the impact, glass flying and an air bag deploying.