INNOVATION 
IS
TRANSFORMING MOBILITY
. . . for those who roll instead of walk:
After years of new ideas in sports-oriented
manual chairs like the racing machine at right . . .
finally there's a big change coming in other kinds of
chairs to make a profound difference in daily mobility:
JOHNSON
& JOHNSON proposes an ambitious leap
forward in power chair design with the IBOT, shown above. It's a
gyro-controlled stair-climbing, standing wheelchair J&J hopes to
market in four to six years. Though the
prototype is an awkward- looking prodigy, IBOT
has the potential for improving life
for thousands. Way beyond that, consider an even more revolutionary four-LEGGED chair that can "walk" over
the 50 per cent of the earth not accessible to wheels. |
Already on the market, but a bit expensive and not yet in widespread use, is the LEVO standing chair from Switzerland. It rolls like a manual rigid-frame everyday chair, then rises to the occasion to lift its user to eye-level for stable stand-up tasks through simple gas-assisted gears. While it won't do stairs or curbs like the battery-powered IBOT machine, the Levo raises the bar on full participation by persons with disabilities by a considerable measure.
