After a stroke that affected her right side, Sue Davidson, a patient at Toronto Rehab, learned to use a manual wheelchair, gliding easily along the hospital’s corridors and through its wide doors. But as soon as she got home, the problems began.
For starters, she couldn’t get her wheelchair across the threshold and into her apartment. Once inside, it was tricky to manoeuvre in small spaces like the galley kitchen and bathroom, and to roll on the broadloom.
It’s a familiar story for Dr. Geoff Fernie, Vice President, Research at Toronto Rehab and leader of the Technology Team.
“The level of performance of assistive devices is just not as good as we would like,” he says. “These devices often don’t work well in real-life environments, and are generally not attractively designed or sufficiently user friendly.”
Learn more about the exciting work of the Technology Research Team by downloading the +5 Research Report now.
About the Technology Research Team
This team provides the technology needed by researchers who work with patient function. It has two areas of focus: developing novel instruments to make measurements both in laboratories and in the community; and developing and transferring to industry, assistive devices that provide higher levels of performance in the challenging environments commonly encountered by people with disabilities who live in the community.