Celebrate Ed Roberts Disability Rights Day

UC Berkeley may be one of the most accessible, disabled-friendly universities in the United States. Much of that is thanks to one man, Ed Roberts.

Roberts, who became a quadriplegic after contracting polio as a teenager, was admitted as a student in 1962 to the Berkeley campus. He immediately found difficulty in obtaining campus housing, however, as campus housing officials refused to accommodate the 800-lb iron lung he had to sleep in. Read more

Set Your Wheelchair Free with the FreeWheel

Standard wheelchairs, with two small front caster wheels, don’t handle uneven terrain, gravel, or dirt very well. Enter the FreeWheel. Patrick Dougherty, injured in a motocross accident and now a C6/C7 quadriplegic, wanted his wheelchair to give him more freedom, and so designed a wheelchair attachment including a larger, threaded wheel that can handle off-road terrain much better than a standard wheelchair.

This new innovative wheelchair attachment will be shown this weekend at the LA Abilities Expo, and we’re pretty sure that it’ll be a hit. Paraplegics, quadriplegics, or anyone using a wheelchair can enjoy a much greater sense of freedom, and it seems like a ton of fun. Just take a look at this video of the FreeWheel to see why.

Learn more about the freewheel and improving your wheelchair mobility at www.gofreewheel.com

How Do You Select the Right Wheelchair?

Greg is a quadriplegic who has put a lot of videos up around his disability and how to modify his home and lifestyle to better accommodate his needs. We’ve found a lot of benefit from watching these, and wanted to share this one on how to select a wheelchair, and Greg even demonstrates his standing wheelchair. We hope you find it useful – and if you have any tips  or experience you’d be willing to share from your own experiences with choosing wheelchairs, leave a comment! We’d love to hear from you!

The Convenience of a Wheelchair Tray

Need someplace to put a magazine down and read easily? What about having a convenient way to eat inside or outside? If you’ve been looking for something like this, a wheelchair tray might be an amazingly useful accessory for your wheelchair. Easily attached and detached, a wheelchair tray provides a convenient and easy surface for holding anything you want to keep close by. For a paraplegic, quadriplegic, or anyone using a wheelchair, it’s a really useful accessory. In this video, Luc shows some of the benefits he gets from his wheelchair tray.

Using a Standing Wheelchair at a Bar!

One of our favorite features of a standing wheelchair is (obviously) that it can stand but even better is that through standing you have the ability to interact on a face-to-face level with others who are standing. As a disabled person, anything that you can do that can normalize your ability to connect with others can be a huge benefit to your confidence and self-esteem.

So, for fun, we decided to head to a bar and have Luc stand up and order his drinks right at the bar. It’s a little loud, but it does show you one of the really cool benefits of a standing wheelchair.

We also have some related posts:

Video of the Benefits of Using a Standing Wheelchair.

Our full story on getting your body ready for, and then using a standing wheelchair as a quadriplegic.

The Amazon Kindle as Reading Device for the Disabled

Most people take it for granted: holding open and reading a book. But for those without full use of their hands or another similar physical disability, this can be a much more difficult process than for an able-bodied person. Holding open a small paperback book and turning a single page at a time can be difficult for a quadriplegic. That’s why new ebook readers such as the Amazon Kindle have the potential to make a huge difference in the lives of those who otherwise would have a difficult time reading. Read more

Accessibility for People with a Mobility Disability in and around Disney World

Disney World can be an amazing vacation destination as evidenced by the over 40 million people that visit each year. I’m sure there are many people confined to wheelchairs who have never visited Disney World and have some questions about how accessible it really is. Last year, I spent two weeks during Spring – long enough to make a decent accessibility assessment – visiting all of the Disney World parks and I would like to report on some of my personal experiences getting around as a C5/C6 quadriplegic in a motorized wheelchair. Hopefully, some of you confined to a wheelchair and thinking about making a trip to Disney World will be able to pick up a few tips while reading this article. Read more

Hiding a Wheelchair Chest Strap

If you need a chest strap to hold you upper torso in your wheelchair, you probably know that visually it can be one of the first things people notice when they meet you. In this video, Luc shows us how he is able to hide the chest strap effectively while still keeping it completely functional.

Video on Using an Electric Leg Bag Emptier

In this video Luc talks about the benefits of using an automatic, electric leg bag emptier and the difference it has made in his personal freedom and his health. Thanks to the electric leg bag emptier, he can drink as much as he wants without having to worry whether someone will be available to empty his leg bag when it gets full. And urinary track infections have become a distant memory.

You might also want to look at our previous story on using an electric leg bag emptier.

Disabled Travel – How to Maximize your Trip and Minimize Your Worries When Flying With a Wheelchair

When you need to use a wheelchair to get around, the thought of flying in a commercial airliner can understandably cause a lot of anxiety and even fear. Damage to the wheelchair is always a possibility, you may get hurt during the transfers to and from the aisle chair, your wheelchair may be delivered late to the jet way upon arrival, or the seats in the plane may be too uncomfortable because they don’t recline far enough or there is not enough leg room. But if some steps are taken, you can minimize the chance of anything adverse happening when you fly, and can help to ensure a safe, successful trip. Read more

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