Seeking to Enable the Disabled : Technology: The Abilities Expo in Anaheim features hundreds of products designed to aid in everything from gripping a pencil to parachuting.
It wasn’t a car show, but some of the vehicles looked like they belonged on the pole at the Indy 500--low-slung, speedy, mechanically sophisticated, constructed from high-tech alloys and painted in screaming metallic colors.
The fact that they were wheelchairs didn’t make them look any slower.
They were a kind of cornerstone of the Abilities Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center last weekend, a reminder of how far technology has gone to blunt the meaning of the word handicapped.
The expo, billed as the largest show in the country featuring devices and services for the disabled, showcased dozens of manufacturers and hundreds of products designed to aid the disabled in performing tasks from gripping a pencil to parachuting.
“A lot of this stuff is new and on the cutting edge and a lot is made by small companies without big advertising budgets,” said Richard Wooten, the owner of RCW Productions, the expo’s producer.
“These little operations can come to a show like this for a fairly modest price, and they show their products to a very specific audience. A lot of people have never seen the equipment until they come here.”
High on the gee-whiz list were a series of computer demonstrations presented by Take Control, a Massachusetts company. Each personal-sized computer was set up to perform a job specifically adapted to the disabled. Among them:
* A program allowing people with hearing impairment to speak into a microphone and see “sound patterns” on the screen that they can compare to a “target” pattern.
* A computer that enlarges text on the screen or “speaks” the text via a voice synthesizer to the visually impaired.
* Computers that operate various functions with the use of a single switch, enlarged keyboards, touch-sensitive screens and devices that respond to head movement alone.
Still, it seemed that most of the gawking at the expo was being done at the booths showing products that were devoted to the pushing back of traditional barriers to the disabled--some practical, others fanciful.
On the practical side, there were several examples of the latest in vans, a favored vehicle for wheelchair-bound people because of its capacity for a hydraulic lift. Some vans, however, were fitted with hydraulics that allowed the entire van to squat closer to the ground rather than raising the driver up on a platform.
By far the sexiest vehicle at the expo, however, was a cherry red Thunderbird, customized with gull-wing doors. Though the car was designed with ease of entry for a handicapped person in mind, it actually was being used “basically as a drawing card,” said Craig Lenz.
Lenz is the president of Contact Technologies, a company with offices in Canada and Stanton that manufactures “portable” automobile hand controls. These standardized controls, common on vehicles driven by paraplegics, usually are attached permanently to cars or vans. However, said Lenz, his company’s controls can be installed in any car without cutting or drilling. The components of the controls come in a carrying case and, said Lenz, they can be installed in any vehicle with an automatic transmission in 30 minutes.
A far simpler device, but one which drew a consistent crowd, was a “mouth stick” system developed by Arthur Heyer, a quadriplegic from San Diego. Heyer, seated in a motorized wheelchair that he operated by nudging a switch with his chin, surrounded himself with tables filled with stereo components, a telephone, a typewriter, a computer and printer and even a card file box. All had been adapted, through the use of small clips, switches and holders, to operation with a single touch of the mouth stick.
The stick itself is lightweight metal in the shape of an elongated Y, with the forked end covered in plastic and clamped in the mouth.
Simpler still were a collection of toys for disabled children. There were the familiar “busy walls”--tactile toys for very young children--but with a difference. The spinners, beads, twirling balls and other devices all were larger, designed to accommodate the grip or touch of a child who’s hand control might be impaired.
The electronic toys all could be activated by large stick switches or paddle-type switches about the size of a large paperback book. One favorite had no switch at all: a large, fuzzy, nondescript but nonetheless friendly-looking stuffed animal that automatically vibrated and squeaked when it was picked up.
It all went on for aisles and aisles: saunas especially constructed for the disabled, wheelchair-friendly vacation destinations, companion dogs, abbreviated wheelchairs with radically cambered wheels designed for tennis or racquetball or dancing, a kind of motorized parachute that operated like an ultralight plane, water and snow skis adapted for paraplegics.
One of the most eye-opening exhibits was not at all flashy, however: the booth advertising the Petrofsky Centers, one of which is based in Irvine. Founded by Jerrold Petrofsky (who was one of the keynote speakers at the expo), the centers are devoted to “computer controlled functional electrical stimulation”--a fancy name for a process that allows many paraplegics to walk and even ride a bicycle.
The underlying principle of Petrofsky’s research, said Janni Smith, a registered nurse and the president of the California Petrofsky Center, involves a machine taking up the electrical work of the brain.
“When a person is paralyzed,” she said, “the brain still works and the muscle still works but the connection is broken. We use the computer to replace the brain, so the computer is sending the appropriate signals through wires directly to the leg muscles. The muscle moves just as if the signal had come from the brain.
“A lot of times people think the worst thing about being paralyzed is that you can’t move--and that certainly is a problem--but what’s more serious are the side effects of not moving, things like the wasting away of the muscles, muscular degeneration, the bone degeneration, the bed sores that can come from poor circulation of blood. With (the stimulation), people look good, they feel good and it prevents the secondary problems of paralysis.”
The electrical stimulation, provided through electrodes taped to the skin of the affected limbs, causes the nerves to respond and the muscles to move, Smith said. This not only exercises unused muscles and builds them up cosmetically, in some patients it can enable them to walk with assists by braces and a walker, or ride a specially fitted bicycle.
Smith cautioned that the stimulation is not a cure, but the more sophisticated computers can sense the position of limbs and provide exactly the stimulation needed for a particular movement, whether it is walking, pedaling or grasping.
Much of the therapy is done at Petrofsky Centers around the country, but Smith said home versions of the equipment may be purchased for around $3,000.
“Unfortunately,” she said, “this type of technology is very expensive, but insurance can cover it.”
One particularly successful Petrofsky patient was Jason Trowbridge, a 22-year-old native of Upstate New York whose legs were paralyzed as a result of an auto accident in 1988.
“You hear about people having guardian angels,” he said. “I must have a couple. Within the first two minutes (of starting therapy), I was standing without using my hands and I just took off. It was awesome.”
Wooten, whose legs were paralyzed 38 years ago as a result of polio, says that sort of reaction is typical at his Abilities Expos. It comes with the satisfaction of finding the right tool for the job. Which, he says, traditionally has not been easy.
“A lot of this equipment is difficult to find,” he said. “That’s the reason I started the show. I knew there was certain equipment out there, but when I decided I wanted to buy it, I couldn’t find it.”
And, he said, when he did find it, it was invariably expensive. That much has not changed.
“Since all this equipment is so-called medical equipment, it tends to be expensive,” he said (a specially made wheelchair can cost up to $10,000). “Because they’re so expensive, it’s important that you buy the right van or the right power chair. You need to make sure it works for your purposes. You come to a show like this and you can be pretty sure you’re spending your $5,000 on the right piece of equipment.”
And there is, he said, satisfaction in that.
“Sometimes,” Wooten said, “the equipment can just open up a whole new world for them. You can totally turn someone’s life around in just a few days.”
