Assistive technology (AT) is a term for assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and the elderly. Disabled people often have difficulty performing activities of daily living (ADLs) independently, or even with assistance. ADLs are self-care activities that include toileting, mobility (ambulation), eating, bathing, dressing, grooming, and personal device care. Assistive technology can ameliorate the effects of disabilities that limit the ability to perform ADLs. Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. For example, wheelchairs provide independent mobility for those who cannot walk, while assistive eating devices can enable people who cannot feed themselves to do so. Due to assistive technology, disabled people have an opportunity of a more positive and easygoing lifestyle, with an increase in "social participation," "security and control," and a greater chance to "reduce institutional costs without significantly increasing household expenses." In schools, assistive technology can be critical in allowing students with disabilities access the general education curriculum. Students who experience challenges writing or keyboarding, for example, can use voice recognition software instead.
Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown, Massachusetts, was founded in 1829 and is the oldest school for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.
Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" and "indirect access" meaning compatibility with a person's assistive technology.
Deafblindness is the condition of little or no useful hearing and little or no useful sight. Different degrees of vision loss and auditory loss occur within each individual, thus making the deafblind community unique with many types of deafblindness involved. Because of this inherent diversity, each deafblind individual's needs regarding lifestyle, communication, education, and work need to be addressed based on their degree of dual-modality deprivation, to improve their ability to live independently. In 1994, an estimated 35,000–40,000 United States residents were medically deafblind. Helen Keller was a well-known example of a deafblind individual. To further her lifelong mission to help the deafblind community to expand its horizons and gain opportunities, the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults, with a residential training program in Sands Point, New York, was established in 1967 by an act of Congress.
Service and supports for people with disabilities are those government or other institutional services and supports specifically provided to enable people who have disabilities to participate in society and community life. Some such services and supports are mandated or required by law, some are assisted by technologies that have made it easier to provide the service or support while others are commercially available not only to persons with disabilities, but to everyone who might make use of them.
Rehabilitation engineering is the systematic application of engineering sciences to design, develop, adapt, test, evaluate, apply, and distribute technological solutions to problems confronted by individuals with disabilities. These individuals may have experienced a spinal cord injury, brain trauma, or any other debilitating injury or disease. Functional areas addressed through rehabilitation engineering may include mobility, communications, hearing, vision, and cognition, and activities associated with employment, independent living, education, and integration into the community.
Assistive technology service providers help individuals with disabilities acquire and use appropriate Assistive Technology (AT) to help them participate in activities of daily living, employment and education.
The Winter Paralympic Games is an international multi-sport event where athletes with physical disabilities compete in snow and ice sports. The event includes athletes with mobility impairments, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy. The Winter Paralympic Games are held every four years directly following the Winter Olympic Games and hosted in the same city. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) oversees the Games. Medals are awarded in each event: with gold for first place, silver for second, and bronze for third, following the tradition that the Olympic Games began in 1904.
Swami Vivekanand National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research is an autonomous institute functioning under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment of India. It is located in Olatpur, 30 km from Cuttack.
Pet orthotics refers to the use of orthotics for pets. Orthotics is an allied health care field concerned with the design, development, fitting, and manufacture of orthoses. Orthoses, sometimes called braces or splints, are devices that support or correct musculoskeletal deformities and/or abnormalities of the body.
Orthotics is a medical specialty that focuses on the design and application of orthoses. An orthosis is "an externally applied device used to influence the structural and functional characteristics of the neuromuscular and skeletal system".
Over time, the approach to cerebral palsy management has shifted away from narrow attempts to fix individual physical problems – such as spasticity in a particular limb – to making such treatments part of a larger goal of maximizing the person's independence and community engagement. Much of childhood therapy is aimed at improving gait and walking. Approximately 60% of people with CP are able to walk independently or with aids at adulthood. However, the evidence base for the effectiveness of intervention programs reflecting the philosophy of independence has not yet caught up: effective interventions for body structures and functions have a strong evidence base, but evidence is lacking for effective interventions targeted toward participation, environment, or personal factors. There is also no good evidence to show that an intervention that is effective at the body-specific level will result in an improvement at the activity level, or vice versa. Although such cross-over benefit might happen, not enough high-quality studies have been done to demonstrate it.
Spastic cerebral palsy is the type of cerebral palsy characterized by spasticity or high muscle tone often resulting in stiff, jerky movements. Cases of spastic CP are further classified according to the part or parts of the body that are most affected. Such classifications include spastic diplegia, spastic hemiplegia, spastic quadriplegia, and in cases of single limb involvement, spastic monoplegia.
Assistive technology in sport is an area of technology design that is growing. Assistive technology is the array of new devices created to enable sports enthusiasts who have disabilities to play. Assistive technology may be used in disabled sports, where an existing sport is modified to enable players with a disability to participate; or, assistive technology may be used to invent completely new sports with athletes with disabilities exclusively in mind.
Neuromechanics of orthoses refers to how the human body interacts with orthoses. Millions of people in the U.S. suffer from stroke, multiple sclerosis, postpolio, spinal cord injuries, or various other ailments that benefit from the use of orthoses. Insofar as active orthoses and powered exoskeletons are concerned, the technology to build these devices is improving rapidly, but little research has been done on the human side of these human-machine interfaces.
The goal of physical and occupational therapy in Duchenne muscular dystrophy is to obtain a clear understanding of the individual, of their social circumstances and of their environment in order to develop a treatment plan that will improve their quality of life. Individuals with DMD often experience difficulties in areas of self-care, productivity and leisure. This is related to the effects of the disorder, such as decreased mobility; decreased strength and postural stability; progressive deterioration of upper-limb function; and contractures. Occupational and physical therapists address an individual's limitations using meaningful occupations and by grading the activity, by using different assessments and resources such as splinting, bracing, manual muscle testing (MMT), ROM, postural intervention and equipment prescription.
Adaptive Standing Tennis is a form of tennis for individuals with physical disability who play the sport of tennis standing, or ambulatory as opposed to their counterparts who play wheelchair tennis, playing tennis in a wheelchair.
Anindya Bapin Bhattacharyya is an Indian American technology instructor for the deafblind. He coordinates the National Outreach Technology Development and Training Program at the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults, traveling the country teaching deafblind people to use adaptive technology. Deaf from birth and blind at the age of nine, Bhattacharyya has been an advocate for deafblind individuals in the United States and beyond.
