Innovative products for those with disabilities

I recently came across this webpage, http://www.iphope.com/main/mobility.html, which has a range of practical and novel products to help young children who have a restriction when it comes to movement.

The restriction may simply be that they have not yet learnt to walk, or that they have a direct disability that prevents them from doing so.

The products covered include some interesting devices that give mobility, aid mobility and even enable the playing of 10 pin bowling.

Unfortunately all of these products fall into, what is for me, a rather archaic solution approach. That is, they replace a lack of physical ability and aptitude with a mechanical alternative that makes no attempt to simulate the actual human movement.

How difficult it is to create or supplement a none functional human movement is something about which I know very little, but for those who are interested, take a look at this page, http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/02/new-prosthetic.html.

In summary, the page is about a “bionic arm” that is being developed in the USA and that uses current technology to duplicate a full range of human movements whilst sending signals directly back to the brain.

This arm is so advanced that by using sensors that link to nerves it is (apparently) possible for the user to get neural feedback on sensations like the pressure of the grip and the temperature of any object that the finger sensors touch – amazing.

How long it will be until these “replacement body parts” become economically viable and available through healthcare organisations is hard to say, but I doubt that I will see them in my lifetime.