Assistive Tech

By Nate Crosby, SPR Therapeutics, LLC Nearly 1.7 million Americans are living with an amputation and another almost 200,000 will undergo an amputation this year. The number of people living with amputation is expected to continue to climb as America deals with an unprecedented, epidemic level of obesity and diabetes. Following amputation many people report…

By Maricel Tabalba Coming up on September 22nd to the 28th is National Fall Prevention Awareness Week. This is a time to raise awareness about one of the biggest threats to the health of adults aged 65 and older. According to the CDC, an elderly person dies every 20 minutes due to a fall. This is especially…

By Don Clayback, NCART Cuts to Illinois’ Medicaid program are squeezing Complex Rehabilitation Technology (CRT) providers to the point where they are not be able to provide services to the nearly 4,000 Illinois residents who depend on the state to pay for CRT equipment. Two Leading CRT Providers Unable to Participate in Medicaid Illinois spends a…

By Alexander Hoppe, Olin College of Engineering Currently 1 in 5 persons in the United States are living with a disability. In the coming decades, populations of people with ambulatory disabilities are likely to continue to increase. Toyota Motor North America’s Social Innovation division seeks to make mobility a source of inspiration and a way…

By Curtis Merring, Permobil The application of power assist should move more from a reactive approach to a proactive approach. For example, instead of thinking, “I will get a power assist when I need it in the future,” we should think, “I’m getting a power assist device now, so I won’t need it in the future.”…

By Jennifer French, Neurotech Network “It just isn’t fair,” she thought, looking up at her children. Dawn Gast was on a trip in downtown Chicago with the three youngest of her seven children. While crossing busy Michigan Avenue, she tripped in the middle of the street and was bleeding with her children aged 5, 7…

By Don Clayback, NCART On November 23, 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) published the 2016 Medicare fee schedule. As feared, the new payment rates include major reductions (as high as 30% to 40% or more) to critical components used with Complex Rehab wheelchairs. But there is still time to act! Complex Rehab wheelchairs and…

By Stanford Stickney In my senior year at UC Berkeley, I took a graduate class in Critical Making, where I met fellow students Tomás Vega and Oscar Segovia. Tomás shared with me his passion for creating technology for people with disabilities. Tomás and some of his friends including Pierre Karashchuk and Kelly Peng were working…

By Eric Rubel, EHLS There are many challenges in our homes that can make it difficult for people with limited mobility or disabilities to safely navigate. Fortunately, there are a number of available solutions that enable people to live safely at home. In this post, we’ll highlight the solutions that are most often added to make…

By Sheryl Bass, The Hadley School for the Blind In the eight years since the iPhone was invented, it has delighted social media savvy teenagers and overscheduled business professionals alike with its user-friendly design and its ability to respond to verbal commands with personal assistant, Siri. However, perhaps unexpectedly, the iPhone and other related devices (iPad,…

By Mickae Lee, National Coalition for Assistive and Rehab Technology (NCART) All advocacy action begins not just with acknowledging that change is needed, but also believing that change is possible. In the world of Complex Rehab Technology (CRT) we know without a doubt that access to innovative technology for individuals with disabilities is an ever-growing…

Bryan Anderson is used to being in front of a camera. So when he appeared in the Oscar-nominated film American Sniper last year, he had no reason to be nervous—even among professionals like Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller. Over the past several years, Anderson has come into his own as an actor, but there is much more…