New type of robotic electric wheelchair
Today experts from Veda International Robot Research and Development Centre in Japan, unvieled the prototype of a new type of electric wheelchair. New, high tech robotic wheelchair looks more like a scooter than traditional wheelchair, but it promises greater mobility for injured hospitalized patients, and hopes to replace not only existing wheelchairs but also two-wheeled vehicles of future.
New electric wheelchair is called Rodem. User sits on the four-wheeled wheelchair similar like on scooter. User rests his knees and chest on the cushions, steering the wheelchair with a joystick wile holding on to motorbike-style handles. The result is that user feels less load on their body.
The whole new approach to electric wheelchair design allows users to mount the device more easily, and dismount it quickly and with less strain and pain as well. Target audience are elderly, hospitalized for smaller injuries which prevent them from freely moving around without help. Rodem is lessening reliance on care-givers to lift these patients.
Rodem promises greater mobility. Its prototype was demonstrated in the medical university in Tokyo. The two main wheels of the Rodem are independently driven by a control valve type lead battery. Autonomy of the electric wheelchair is around four hours per charge. Maximum moving speed is 6km/h, but can be set to lower limits as well. The dimensions of the Rodem are equivalent to the size of a normal wheelchair, and it weights about 200 lbs (100kg). It also features small minimum turning diameter.
Finding out that you will be living with a disability can be a devastating, traumatic event. It means changes in your life in many ways. Many will be difficult at first, but not all of these changes are bad. Acceptance of your disability is the first step towards emotional recovery, and with that acceptance comes the realization that when life gives you lemons, it also gives you all of the ingredients to make lemonade.
Life in a medical wheelchair offers a unique perspective. While it would be easy to focus on the negative, and say that what the standing can see, the seated cannot, the opposite is also equally true. What can be seen from a chair cannot be seen by the standing. Your view of the world may be slightly different, but you are still looking at the same beautiful, varied and fluid sphere. Take the time to appreciate what you can see. Realize that this consciousness is a gift, and use that awareness to take pleasure in things that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.