Wheelchair

“ He had been seeking a stairway back to the second floor. He followed the quadrangle, came upon an unexpected hall between two rooms. At the end of the hall a square chamber was flooded with brilliance from a skylight. A legless man, many-chinned, frog-eyed, sat in a wheelchair. Across his monstrous chest a row of medals glittered. "Come in, come in," he roared jovially. "Any friend of nobody's a friend of mine." ”

“ Workshops with citizens trained by Hotchkiss are operating in two dozen developing countries including Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Vietnam, Cambodia, Palestine, Guatemala, Honduras, among others. And Whirlwind Wheelchair is continuing to reach out-and to liberate-the disabled in remote parts of the world.
The need for wheelchairs-affordable, durable and easily repaired wheelchairs-is staggering, particularly in countries ravaged by polio and preventable amputations. Whirlwind Wheelchair International estimates that twenty million people in developing countries need wheelchairs. ”

“ Head and spinal cord injuries paralyze 10,000 Americans a year and many must use a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. The estimated total cost in dollars to society of these injuries exceeds $2 billion annually. An additional tragic toll is exacted in diminished personal happiness and productivity. The devastation of spinal cord injury is compounded by the youth of those it strikes: Two-thirds are 20 years of age or younger. ”

“ In general.— Congress reaffirms that nothing in the Wilderness Act is to be construed as prohibiting the use of a wheelchair in a wilderness area by an individual whose disability requires use of a wheelchair, and consistent with the Wilderness Act no agency is required to provide any form of special treatment or accommodation, or to construct any facilities or modify any conditions of lands within a wilderness area in order to facilitate such use. ”

“ The barn door which had been a rickety wooden slab from the outside was a gleaming sheet of metal from the inside. It glided silently shut and left no joint or seam to show where there had been an opening.
"Out," said Naomi.
As they left the car, a flexible metal arm snaked from one of the smooth walls, attached itself to the front bumper of the vehicle, and whisked it into a cubicle which opened to receive it and closed behind it.
A power-driven wheelchair sped up to them. Sitting in it was a fat man of middle age, with pendulous jowls and a totally bald head. ”

“ He spun his wheelchair on a decishield, threw it into high and roared down on the offender, running him over. The boy covered himself as well as he could while the raging old man backed over him again and ran over him again. ”

“ In his travels, Hotchkiss is constantly designing and redesigning to meet special needs in the developing countries. He has come up with new specifications for wheelchairs that can provide mobility in mountainous regions. He has designed special wheelchairs for women and a separate configurations for children. And most importantly, he searches out available local materials that are affordable and easily adapted to wheelchairs. ”

“ No person shall ride on or operate a bicycle, scooter, skateboard or other vehicle powered by muscular power, except a wheelchair, on a highway unless the person is wearing a helmet that complies with the regulations and the chin strap of the helmet is securely fastened under the chin. ”

“ She has got a new wheelchair which is streamlined and has more chrome on it than a limousine, and some bird with a Vandyke and a accent you can spread like marmalade is giving her some kind of underwater massage for her legs, so she should be very happy. ”

“ Providing physical access to a facility from public sidewalks, public transportation, or parking is basic to making goods and services available to people with disabilities. Having only one step at the entrance can prevent access by a person using a wheelchair, walker, or cane and can make entry difficult for many other people with mobility disabilities. ”

“ This year, in addition to rededicating ourselves to breaking down employment barriers, we will highlight the achievements of people with disabilities in areas such as journalism, entertainment, and the arts. People like journalist John Hockenberry prove that a wheelchair need not be an obstacle to traveling the world to report breaking news. Artists like blind sculptor Michael Naranjo and deaf painter Alex Wilhite illustrate that having a disability can be the vehicle for advancing the arts in novel ways. ”

“ A child in a wheelchair who exercises in virtual reality can be helped to function independently in the world that qualifies his condition as a handicap. Important skills can be acquired by interpolating patterns of behavior developed in the physical world in the rough draft of the simulated world. People are helped to recover after accidents and illness, and are supported in acquiring skills in an environment where the individual sets the goals. ”

“ Rental and Purchase of Power-Driven Wheelchairs. (a) In General.— Section 1834 (a) (7) (A) (iii) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395m (a) (7) (A) (iii) ) is amended— (1) in the heading, by inserting ``certain complex rehabilitative ́ ́ after ``option for ́ ́; and (2) by striking ``power-driven wheelchair ́ ́ and inserting ``complex rehabilitative power-driven wheelchair recognized by the Secretary as classified within group 3 or higher ́ ́. ”

“ The employer must be willing to consider making changes in its ordinary work rules, facilities, terms, and conditions in order to enable a disabled individual to work. The difficult term is "reasonable." The plaintiff in our case, a paraplegic, argues in effect that the term just means apt or efficacious. An accommodation is reasonable, she believes, when it is tailored to the particular individual's disability. A ramp or lift is thus a reasonable accommodation for a person who like this plaintiff is confined to a wheelchair. ”

“ Currently, Hotchkiss is completing the design and testing of an off-road chair designed for ultra-rugged terrain. It meets all the standard indoor and outdoor criteria, but it can travel on slopes twice as steep as those deemed safe for a standard chair. A unique X-brace feature allows height/width flexibility so that the chair can "grow" as its owner grows from child to adult. ”

“ Nothing but shafts are needed, and a common rocking-chair, with a foot-board nailed across216 the front rocker, on which to rest the feet. The chair is then slipped along back to the axle of the wheels, so that the shafts, when raised, are under the seat, and lift it up. In this way an invalid can be rolled through yards and gardens with very little effort, and with great comfort and relief to the imprisoned sufferer, who perhaps can ride in no other way. ”

“ Many old inhabitants claim that wheel-chair riding is excellent for{20} the liver, and devote at least two hours to it every afternoon. The negro chair chauffeurs drive the chair along by vigorous pedaling, and the alternate leg stroke gives the chair a gentle side to side motion which acts as a mild massage on the occupant. Two hours of such exercise is considered to be about enough by the most conservative Palm Beachers. It is their belief that the persons who ride for three hours run a great risk of over-exerting themselves. ”

“ Thus, a child may have hip-disease, and, after years of treatment, get well, and although vigorous enough to do all that is required in life, be more or less lame. In another case, there is disease of the bones of the spine. After a wearying treatment, it is well, but the little one has a distorted spine,—is humpbacked. Again, we have the common malady, palsy of childhood, and here, too, most probably, there is left a residue of disability, or, at all events, some loss of power. ”

“ Several of the forms of paralysis have each its significant gait. For instance, if a patient comes in with a firm, rather precise, calculated sort of gait, "clumping" each foot upon the floor as if he had struck it an inch sooner than he had expected, and clamping it there firmly for a moment before he lifts it again, as though he were walking on ice, with more knee action than seems necessary, you would have a strong suspicion that you had to deal with a case of locomotor ataxia, in which loss of sensation in the soles of the feet is one of the earliest symptoms. ”

“ Let us go up the Magdalena and across to Bogotá, Gipsy!"
He sat in the wheel-chair he had himself designed, a wonderfully light and graceful affair,—considering,—with wonderful places alongside and beneath for wonderful things. His crutches were there, slung alongside, ready to his hand, and wicker detachable receptacles for writing-things and sketching-block and pencils and the book he was reading and so forth. Where he travelled now, the wheel-chair must travel. He was good with crutches for a hundred paces or two; then he must sit down and gather force for the next hundred. ”

“ The bearer then places his arm behind the back of the patient and grasps his opposite hip, at the same time catching firmly hold of the hand of the patient placed on his shoulder with his other hand. Then by putting his hip behind the near hip of the patient much support is given, and, if necessary, the bearer can in this way lift him off the ground, and, as it were, carry him along. This is an admirable way of helping an invalid to walk up stairs. If the patient cannot stand, the only way in which one person can remove him is by getting him on his back ”

“ The poor baby stumbles in its passage over the rough ground, and the nurse being en­gaged in preserving herself from the probability of being run over by the cabs or omnibuses which are constantly passing, rushes across, and at the end of her unnecessary journey beats the poor infant for its clumsiness. By this practice the shoulder of the child may be dislocated, or the clavicle broken, while the spine becomes completely distorted. The same thing will sometimes occur with boys who, when very young, are taken out for a walk by their parents. ”

“ It consumes a big area, but it is all on one level—the ground level. The patient on crutches can go anywhere without fear of tripping, the patient in a wheeled chair can propel himself anywhere, the orderlies can push wheeled stretchers or dinner-wagons anywhere. Our visitor for C 13, having escaped from the back of the Scottish baronial building, emerges into a vista of covered corridors, wooden-floored, galvanised-iron roofed. It is a heartbreaking vista to the poor woman who has had no bus-fare and is burdened by a baby in arms. It is a vista which seems to have no end. ”

“ This holds good for motor nerves, and we can also note degeneration of muscles and organs which are not used. Thus, the nerves of an extremity, after amputation, undergo a process of degeneration. The lower limbs of people affected with infantile paralysis, or of persons obliged to remain in bed for a long time, show atrophic changes. Hence we can easily see the necessity for exercise, which increases the blood-supply to the muscles and nerves. Work of any kind, even mental work alone, is a means of preventing precocious senility ”

“ Injury to the spinal cord, destroying the lower motor center for the legs, brings complete paralysis. Injury to the motor area or to the pyramidal tract does not destroy reflex movement, but cuts off all voluntary movement and cerebral control. Injury to the "super-motor centers" causes loss of skilled movement, and produces the condition of "apraxia", in which the subject, though knowing what he wants to do, and though still able to move his limbs, simply cannot get the combination for the skilled act that he has in mind. ”

“ On side-streets, one frequently sees the almost forgotten spectacle of a frail débutante learning to ride. On the dance floor she would float along as lightly as a tuft of thistledown. On a bicycle she wabbles heavily and helplessly from side to side, collapsing at intervals against her instructor with all the crushing weight of a California Redwood.
The wheel-chair is the favorite Palm Beach method of locomotion, and it is the only form of exercise ever taken by many Palm Beach visitors. ”

“ In the United States, musculoskeletal disorders are a leading cause of physical disability. Conditions such as osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, back pain, spinal disorders, and fractures, also affect hundreds of millions of people around the world. And many children suffer from crippling bone and joint diseases and deformities, impeding normal development and preventing them from experiencing a full and healthy life. ”