This week’s virtual Honors Colloquium focused on advancing technology for people with disabilities.
University of Pittsburgh professor Rory A. Cooper, a paralympian that is highly accomplished for his work with people with disabilities, was this week’s speaker. The work of people with disabilities is very important to Cooper, who is paralyzed from the waist down.
Cooper’s studies focus on assistive technology, as it is needed for those who are paralyzed to go about their daily lives without extra assistance. He focused on how assistive technology can ensure that people with disabilities thrive in the environment they are in and provide the tools to succeed in life.
Technology can improve and promote health and participation for people with disabilities. Cooper believes that people with disabilities could help drive scientific discovery forward. However, Cooper said there are still barriers in their way.
“One of the sad commentaries on the United States is that many kids with disabilities don’t have adequate opportunities to study STEM after middle school,” said Cooper.
Cooper explained that both access to equipment and the knowledge of teachers are two things that need to be improved for people with disabilities. He said we need to use the voice of the consumer as a way to create a “road map” for approaches to solving problems, as many consumers know much more than scientists and inventors give them credit for.
“The President’s Research Advisory Council site recommended there be a road map for rehabilitation and disability research; the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans affairs has called for such [a] road map,” Cooper said.
Cooper said his organization, the Human Engineering Research Laboratory (HERL), has taken this challenge themselves to a certain extent. HERL has developed a large survey which asks about 1,700 people about the need for better wheelchairs. Responses included robotic, manual or smart device applications that offer features such as voice-to-text that can benefit the individual.
According to Cooper, during the survey, a lot of people were desiring technologies that they were unaware already existed.
“What I found shocking is that both consumers and clinicians were not aware of many technologies that were already commercially available,” Cooper said. “This led to another survey about information sources. The non-veterans typically got information from friends and family while veterans were either fully engaged or non-engaged.”
Cooper focused a lot of his event discussing the quality of wheelchairs today. He said one of the reasons that wheelchairs fail is due to outside forces coming through the casters, as those wheels are often smaller and that they tend to be more easily damaged. HERL developed something that they call the oblique angle suspension caster fork, or “the glide” as it is known commercially. It absorbs shocks.
Cooper and HERL also invented the Smartwheel for people with carpal tunnel syndrome. Originally used to go faster in races, it has also recently been used to help reduce risk of rotator cuff injuries as well.
This technology is also used to encourage fitness among people with disabilities with apps such as Wheelfit. Cooper said the reasoning relates again to lack of awareness or accessible gyms for people with disabilities.
Cooper also brought up another thing that HERL has worked on: intelligent bed technology for those with disabilities to weigh themselves. This will help them be weighed in bed and maintain weight to avoid metabolic disease, which Cooper said is regular in people with disabilities.
“Many people with mobility impairments don’t have the ability to weigh themselves or track their weight,” Cooper said.
Towards the end of his talk, Cooper showed a video featuring fellow researcher Joshua Chung and research participant Alec. Alec has cerebral palsy and was testing out the robotic controller arm with a mini joystick which, giving him the ability to eat and drink on his own for the first time in his life
“It’s pretty hard to put a price on that,” Cooper said. “I often tell people that I get paid most frequently in smiles and tears.”