Equipping the Disabled

By Wolf Von Eckardt

Innovators come up with new wheelchairs, utensils, beds

Seconds after takeoff on his first try with a hang glider, a sudden gust of wind caused Craig Vetter to crash. He spent two months in a wheelchair, learning to hate what many disabled persons call the "chrome-plated torture rack." Now, one year later, Industrial Designer Vetter, 39, has put his own well-engineered, light, agile and elegant wheelchair design on the market. As yet custom made, Vetter's chair also comes in a sports model for wheelchair tennis, basketball or marathons.

If Vetter has given the wheelchair a contemporary look, Thomas E. Stephenson, 49, has revolutionized it. He has designed a chair that runs on belts like a tank, rather than the usual bicycle wheels. In contrast to wheels, which can be stopped by an obstruction like a garden hose, Stephenson's traction belts can negotiate a step, a curb or a grade. The design is still on the drawing boards.

An international conference in New York City last week called Designed Environments for All People dealt with such products and those who are forced to use them. Among the sponsors of the conference: the National Center for a Barrier Free Environment. Attended by more than 300 architects and designers, the conference tried to make those present even more aware that the world is not inhabited exclusively by the ablebodied.

"Designing with disabilities in mind is not a matter of designing for some incomprehensible, mysterious group of users, but for you and me, our families and friends," said Industrial Designer Richard Hollerith, a member of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped. As he pointed out, today or tomorrow, for days or for life, anyone can be struck by a disability--from a broken leg to paralysis, from an earache to deafness, from poor eyesight to blindness, to say nothing of the debilities of old age.

In 24 workshops, the conference discussed how small changes in the design of buildings, vehicles, interiors, furniture, appliances and utensils can often make independent living easier for the disabled--and for all of us. Industrial Designer Patricia Moore, 28, lived with the aged to learn firsthand about their concerns. One unsuspected problem: fluorescent lighting in supermarkets is much too bright for most old eyes, let alone eyes with cataracts, to read the lettering on labels. Elderly shoppers pick the goods they want by the color of the package. Moore's advice to producers: "Don't change the color of your packaging."

Interior Designer Louis Tregre, 57, presented a line of Sola ceramic dinnerware, designed to help people suffering from poor vision, crippling arthritis, the loss of a hand or misperception of distances. The dishes have a deep, straight inner edge to hold the food pushed against it. Cup handles are reshaped for a full grasp, even by shaky hands. Some cups and saucers have two handles. Saucers are indented to hold cups firmly in place. The dinnerware is conventionally decorated. Says Tregre: "You can't force contemporary designs on a health-care home. The folks want friendly and familiar surroundings."

Tregre's Sola utensils for the elderly and disabled also include stainless-steel and Lexan (resin) flatware, for easy holding and handling, a bed with a mattress that can be raised and lowered, and a hexagonal dining table for six, intended for old-age homes. It gives each diner a straight-edged section to avoid the confusion a round table sometimes presents to the elderly. The table rests on a center pedestal to provide knee room for people in wheelchairs. These objects are much praised by consumers and health-care administrators. But like Stephenson and other designers, Tregre complains that industry seems reluctant to adapt them for mass production.

Many designers of equipment for the disabled share this problem. Says Stephenson, who received an $8,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to develop his idea: "We are making this big national effort to remove barriers for people in wheelchairs. We are lowering elevator buttons and public telephones. We are building ramps and installing transit-bus lifts. We are spending millions of tax dollars on research and development programs to get wheelchairs on Amtrak, buses and taxis. But wheelchair manufacturers must pay for their own research. Maybe that is why we have not seen any significant improvement of the wheelchair in 50 years."

Conventional wheelchairs were designed to be pushed and backed up steps or curbs by a nurse or attendant. Motorized or not, they tend to be heavy and cumbersome. Stephenson's chair puts the center of gravity further forward so that the person in the wheelchair needs virtually no knee room. The seat can be lowered and raised by a scissor mechanism; and the chair can be folded up into an easily portable package.

Best of all, the chair is guided by an inexpensive, remote-control joy stick. At home the chair can be sent into a corner to recharge its batteries.

One reason the $300 million-a-year wheelchair Industry resists innovations like Vetter's or Stephenson's is a bureaucratically obdurate and conservative market. The disabled rarely pay for their own special equipment. It is bought for them by government and insurance agencies, subject to specifications that change slowly. Says Matt Hall, public relations director for Everest and Jennings Inc., of Los Angeles, the nation's largest wheelchair manufacturer: "Some wheelchair users will, rightly, always be disappointed that we can't give them a magic carpet. But we keep offering new models with both changed appearance and changed propulsion. But only 1% of our customers buy them."

Industry in general seems hesitant to produce furnishings and equipment with the disabled in mind because of an ostrich mentality that many Americans share. That mentality prefers to ignore disability, anything that is not "normal."

--By Wolf Von Eckardt

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