Tuesday, December 11, 2001
When I first heard about it a year
ago, I blew it off as an unrealistic fantasy story.
A wheelchair that climbs stairs?
Impossible. Not in my lifetime, I
thought.
But I was wrong.
Progress is being made on the IBOT,
"the futuristic, stair-climbing, beach-crossing, body-lifting wheelchair"
that is now in clinical trials, recent news reports tell me.
New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson
Inc. plans to market the revolutionary wheelchair in 2002, for between
$20,000 and 25,000 apiece.
I may not sit in this wheelchair
in my lifetime. At least not my financial lifetime. Christopher Reeve maybe,
but not myself and your rank-and-file disabled person.
The IBOT was invented by Dean Kamen,
best known recently for his invention of a scooter with the name "IT" or
"Ginger."
Earlier this month, Kamen unveiled
on national television the "Segway Human Transporter," a one-person, battery-powered
scooter that supporters say will revolutionize transportation much like
the automobile did a century ago.
News reports said it is difficult
to fall from the scooter or even knock it over, due to gyroscopes that
work to keep it upright and discern where the rider wants to go.
It is not targeted for those who
use wheelchairs, however: Riders stand upright, facing forward over the
invention's single axle, navigating with a bicycle-like handlebar.
So we will have to settle for the
IBOT, officially named the Independence 3000 IBOT Transporter.
The IBOT, also loaded with gyroscopes,
can climb up and descend stairs. It can move over obstacles. It can balance
on two wheels and move as the user shifts weight. It can put users in an
elevated position.
A report in New Mobility magazine
says those users of more standard wheelchairs who have tried IBOT and who
are raised to eye level with standing people get an "emotional wallop."
"It is a standing world," a wheelchair
user was quoted in the New Mobility story. "You get accustomed to sitting
down but when you get to eye level with everyone else, well, you notice
it." The wheelchair user was an engineer who helps with the clinical trials
of the IBOT at the University of Pittsburgh.
"It is really something to be up
and balanced and interacting with colleges," he said.
The university studies are to determine
if the wheelchair will enhance employment opportunities for people with
disabilities. The results are to be sent to the federal Food and Drug Administration,
which is to also analyze IBOT.
Kamen's own privately-held New England
company, DEKA Research and Development, is also running more tests.
New Mobility said in its story that
Kamen, 50, rode an IBOT around the White House after former President Bill
Clinton awarded him the National Medal of Technology in January.
The magazine said Kamen attracted
international attention "when he piloted the chair up the stairs of the
Eiffel Tower" in Paris.
The IBOT news has been exciting and
encouraging to people with and without disabilities, especially those who
want to join, or rejoin, this "standing world."
I sure would enjoy having an IBOT
or at least giving it a test ride.
However, there are still some major
issues and questions still to be answered:
"The biggest questions about the
IBOT may ultimately come down to two unresolved issues," according to the
New Mobility article. "Will insurance companies pay for the IBOT and how
will they determine who qualifies?"