physical disability

How Can Electric Vehicles Help Drivers with Mental and Physical Conditions?

Posted on May 23, 2022

By Alex Channing

Giving people with physical and mental conditions easier access to our roads will go a long way to helping them live with autonomy and independence. There are many common disabilities that can affect driving, such as arthritis, neurological conditions, or impaired hearing or vision. Fortunately, technological advances are continuing to make it easier for disabled people to get behind the wheel. 

Electric vehicles (EVs) are one such innovation which could help to reduce the gulf in driver numbers between non-disabled and disabled people. But how can an EV assist drivers who have pre-existing conditions? Here are three ways people with mental and physical conditions could benefit from making the switch to electric.

Quieter ride

With fewer moving parts and the absence of a combustion engine, EVs offer a far quieter ride than traditional cars. Whilst this alone may not have you rushing out to join the electric revolution, the reduced noise of an EV has actually been found to have many positive effects on the mental health of drivers. 

A study carried out by researchers at the University of York analysed the brain activity of London taxi drivers when driving both diesel and electric black cabs. The study concluded that they were calmer, happier and more focused in the electric model. It was inferred that the quieter working environment contributed towards higher concentration levels in drivers, with fewer distractions allowing them to focus more on the roads. 

Particularly for people who rely on getting into their cars every day for work or other commitments, the more peaceful conditions could go a long way to helping reduce some of the stresses associated with driving.

Convenience 

It’s a common misconception amongst many drivers that petrol-power is always more convenient than electric when it comes to cars. But there are many arguments that dispute this belief. For example, most electric vehicles are automatic, meaning you won’t have to contend with a gear box or often even a traditional handbrake whilst driving. This can make for a safer and far more comfortable driving experience, particularly for people with joint pain. 

What’s more, for people who suffer from physical impairments, but aren’t registered as disabled, an added benefit of EVs could be the designated electric car parking spaces which are often located in priority spots. In car parks with charging points, these bays will often be placed in a more convenient position, meaning less walking is required to and from your vehicle.

Charging 

As it is, for many disabled drivers, ‘filling up’ an EV is far less strenuous than using a traditional petrol or diesel pump. Whereas using a fuel pump requires the strength to pull the trigger and hold it in place, you simply need to plug the charger into your EV to top it up, where it can be left unattended until fully charged. What’s more, having the freedom to fill up your EV from the comfort of home can help put your mind at ease, and means you can avoid busy petrol/charging stations.

NCDJ Board Member Becky Curran Kekula Discusses Facing the Fear of Inclusivity

Posted on March 23, 2020
NCDJ board member Becky Curran Kekula speaks with a TMJ-4 reporter on “The Morning Blend” about inclusive ways to discuss disability.

By “The Morning Blend” show on TMJ-4 Milwaukee

NCDJ board member Becky Curran Kekula appeared on this morning talk show to discuss tips for treating people with disabilities fairly and respectfully. Part of the discussion focused on the fact that since 70% of disabilities are invisible, many people are nervous to either admit they have a disability, or to speak about someone who may have a disability that isn’t immediately apparent.

Also featured are some of Becky’s favorite tips for working remotely — a particularly relevant topic in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Watch the full segment here: https://www.tmj4.com/shows/the-morning-blend/facing-the-fear-of-inclusivity

These women are making Charlotteans with disabilities a priority

Posted on December 23, 2019

Monique Stamps and Judith Brown are using their personal experiences to advocate for Charlotteans with disabilities.

Judith Brown is executive director of Project 70Forward, a nonprofit working to create an inclusive community for Charlotteans with disabilities. Photo courtesy of Judith Brown
By Bryant Carter, Q City Metro

Among Charlotte’s diverse population, those who are disabled rarely get the attention they deserve. Monique Stamps and Judith Brown want to use their personal experiences to help change that, especially for people of color with disabilities.

At 16, Stamps was involved in a car crash in Rock Hill resulting in injuries that left her reliant on a wheelchair. Following the accident, she found it difficult growing up with a disability. Doctors warned her against having children, friends and family suggested she collect disability insurance instead of going to college, and the agency that was supposed to be a resource wasn’t very helpful.

Under section 14(c) of the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act, companies can pay disabled workers below the federal minimum wage. When the local Vocational Rehabilitation office placed Stamps in a job sorting plastic spoons, she fought back.

“They told me I was being arrogant versus trying to get an education and live a full life,” she said. “If that made me arrogant, then so be it.”

In 2000, Stamps earned her bachelor’s degree in social work from Winthrop University. Four years later, she relocated to Charlotte to work at an independent-living facility mentoring others with disabilities. That was her first meeting with Judith Brown, who had come to the center for assistance.

Motivation to change the system

Brown lived in New York City and Baltimore before moving to Charlotte in 2010. She suffered hearing, vision and spinal cord injuries in her late 30s that prevented her from working. Brown also discovered that her two sons were autistic. Doctors misdiagnosed her family, she said, because their symptoms weren’t common in African Americans.

The two women immediately bonded as Black women with disabilities who experienced unfair treatment by social services.

Read the full article here: https://qcitymetro.com/2019/12/20/these-women-are-making-charlotteans-with-disabilities-a-priority/

A new wheelchair will help this University of Florida student journalist do stand-ups — literally

Posted on December 20, 2019
Drew Dees in front of a camera.
University of Florida student journalist Drew Dees works on a video project with UF’s creative services team. (Photo courtesy Drew Dees)

By: , Poynter

Student journalist Drew Dees is kind but firm when he interviews people for his Florida college TV station.

Please stand up, he instructs them. Don’t crouch down in front of me. I’m not a baby.

He understands that people might not be used to seeing a journalist in a wheelchair — he never saw any on TV when he was growing up — but he demands to be treated the same as any other reporter.

“One of the big barriers in this career field is getting people to … take you seriously,” he said.

A 24-year-old junior at the University of Florida, Dees said he’s had overwhelming support from his family and professors as he pursues a degree in broadcast journalism. His dream of being an on-air reporter and anchor feels even more real now that his insurance company has agreed to provide him with a new $50,000 wheelchair. The Permobil F5 Corpus VS chair will allow him to move from a sitting position to standing with the touch of a button.

“It’s just going to make such a world of difference for me,” he said. “Just to be able to stand up and be able to talk to people on eye level and not have to look up at someone; that’s just the most amazing feeling to me.”

The chair will also allow him to do what’s known in TV news as a standup, where a reporter shares information on camera while standing or walking.

“It’s going to allow me to be more creative, to have more of that demonstrative standup that we look for instead of just being a talking head,” he said.

Dees got a test run of the new chair during a recent fitting to make sure it’s properly adjusted to his body. The chair won’t be ready for several months, but Dees was so excited that he posted a picture on social media of him using the chair to stand up. On a whim, he shared that photo and story in a journalism Facebook group that has about 15,000 members.

Read the full article here:https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2019/a-new-wheelchair-will-help-this-university-of-florida-student-journalist-do-stand-ups-literally/

The Physics (and Economics, and Politics) of Wheelchairs on Planes

Posted on December 5, 2019

Flying can be stressful, painful, or simply impossible for wheelchair users. Critics say it doesn’t have to be that way.

A mostly empty airplane with people beginning to fill in.
Visual: NurPhoto / Getty Images

By Michael Schulson, Undark

WHEN SHANE BURCAW flies on an airplane, he brings along a customized gel cushion, a car seat, and about 10 pieces of memory foam. The whole arsenal costs around $1,000, but for Burcaw it’s a necessity.

The 27-year-old author and speaker — who, alongside his fiancée, Hannah Aylward, is one half of the YouTube duo Squirmy and Grubs — has spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disorder that affects motor neurons and causes muscle wasting and weakness. The disorder contorted his limbs and he has used a wheelchair for mobility since he was 2 years old. Today, he uses a motorized wheelchair custom-fitted to his diminutive, 65-lb. frame, but to board an airplane, he’s required to give it up. Instead, Aylward must carry Burcaw onto the plane, and from there, transfer him into a child’s car seat, which provides limited support and does not fit his body (thus, the foam).

“When you hear about the injuries and the discomfort and the embarrassment that wheelchair users have faced when flying,” Burcaw said, “it becomes pretty obvious that they’re not being treated in a very humane way with these rules.”

Indeed, regulations prohibit passengers from sitting in their own wheelchairs on planes, and, as a result, 29 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which dramatically increased American wheelchair users’ access to buses, trains, and other essential 21st century infrastructure, airplanes remain stubbornly inaccessible. For many wheelchair users, the experience of flying is stressful, painful, and sometimes humiliating. For some, it is simply impossible.

Emily Ladau, a disability rights activist, writer, and public speaker, does deep-breathing exercises to manage her anxiety as airport staff take her wheelchair away. She likens the experience to watching someone walk off with her legs. Things aren’t much better onboard. “Airplane seats are designed for the quote-unquote average person,” Ladau said. “I’m nowhere near the quote-unquote average person.” At 4’6”, she does not fit the seat easily. Her legs dangle. She cannot align her posture. “It’s very uncomfortable,” she said.

“You’re basically giving disabled people yet another reason to feel like society wants us shut into our homes and doesn’t want us going anywhere.”

Read the full article here: https://undark.org/2019/12/03/making-flying-safe-accessible/?fbclid=IwAR12anC3a_5uwrH1MBh9q4wRUi6txearETo1yedwgZBm4LGfTmO079kf9vA

 

New law requires airlines to disclose how many wheelchairs they break

Posted on January 2, 2019

wheelchair at airport

Beginning in January 2019, airline passengers can search the U.S. Department of Transportation website to determine an airlines’ track record of handling wheelchairs and other mobility devices. A new law sponsored by U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., requires air carriers to be more transparent, obliging them to provide monthly reports that are publicly accessible and which detail the number of wheelchairs, checked bags, and motorized scooters lost, broke, or mishandled during flights.

The law was actually passed two years ago, but the Department of Transportation delayed its implementation until Duckworth–a veteran and wheelchair user herself–urged U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao to force airlines to make the data — which they already collect each month — available to the public.

Click here to access the article on the Chicago Tribune’s website.

More Americans Have Disabilities, Survey Finds

Posted on August 21, 2018

One in four Americans is disabled, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released Thursday “At some point in their lives, most people will either have a disability or know someone who has a one,” Coleen Boyle, director of CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said in a written statement. Read Binghui Huang’s story here.

A Japanese man in a wheelchair in the Asakusa area of Tokyo, Japan. ** OUTS - ELSENT, FPG, CM - OUTS * NM, PH, VA if sourced by CT, LA or MoD ** (Rich Legg / Getty Images)
A Japanese man in a wheelchair in the Asakusa area of Tokyo, Japan. ** OUTS – ELSENT, FPG, CM – OUTS * NM, PH, VA if sourced by CT, LA or MoD ** (Rich Legg / Getty Images)

Op-ed piece addresses New York Post cover story

Posted on August 7, 2018

A New York Post cover story advances the harmful notion that if someone can walk, they must not have a disability writes Peter Catapano in his op-ed piece “A Front-Page Insult to People With Disabilities”.
Mr. Catapano is the editor of the opinion series Disability at the New York Times.

Image of New York Post cover story "Walk of Shame."
Image of New York Post cover story “Walk of Shame”, by Jeenah Moon for The New York Times”

For Filipinos with disabilities, climate change and natural disasters are a dangerous mix

Posted on August 7, 2018
For almost three decades, Bacita De La Rosa has been unable to walk due to a spinal cord injury she suffered after she was struck by a vehicle. She has since been dependent upon her family for help with many basic needs and cannot leave her home without assistance — all of which has proven to be very difficult when the inevitable tropical storm comes. Credit: Jason Strother/PRI

PRI’s Jason Strother examines how Typhoon Haiyan impacted the disability community in the Philippine city of Tacloban
Read his story on climate change, natural disaster and disability here

Coyotes Sled Hockey

Posted on April 3, 2018

Special report from ASU student Karenna Guzman

Sled hockey is a sport where people with physical disabilities are able to play hockey with the same rules, but different equipment.

Some NHL teams are affiliated with a sled hockey team that adopts their same name and jerseys. The Coyotes are Arizona’s sled hockey team that play at Alltel Ice Den in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“I played pick-up hockey almost every night (in Minnesota) but I did not get to play ice hockey until after I lost my leg,” Mike Schulenberg said, a defensive player on the Coyotes sled hockey team.

Schulenberg lost his leg when he was 25. He had battled for 10 years trying to help his leg recover after getting cancer in it when he was 15.

He played on the Minnesota sled hockey team for seven years before moving to Arizona and joining their team in 2017.

“We used to play against the Arizona team when we were in tournaments when I was in Minnesota so I already knew some of the people, when I moved I contacted them and started skating down here,” Schulenberg said.

Sled hockey is played with two sticks, one in each hand, to hit the puck as well as to help the players push themselves forward in the sleds. The sticks are roughly one third the size of typical hockey sticks, the NHL website states.

The players sit and are strapped into their sleds which have a blade on the bottom to glide across the ice. The game is played with the same rules as hockey, but the equipment is adapted to let people who can’t use their legs play the game, Schulenberg said.

Paul Crane started the team in 2004 and has been a coach as well as a player ever since.

“I help look for funding along with others from different sponsors, that’s what helps run the team so we have ice and have travel,” Crane said.

Since Crane is both a player and a coach he helps to organize the practices and comes up with different drills that can challenge and advance the skills of the team, he said.

In Crane’s 15 years of coaching the team he said that he has seen people join with skill levels from beginner to professional.

He said when teaching people the sport, usually the hardest part is teaching them to find their balance with the sled and learning to maneuver using the sticks.

“Everybody advances differently, you just have to get them in the sled and get them out there, teach them to push and turn and then puck handling and they go on from there,” Crane said.

People of any skill level can join this team whether they have never played before or are a Paralympian. However, only three able-bodied people are allowed on each team, Schulenberg said.

Joe Hamilton is another player on the Coyotes sled hockey team. He said he joined in 2010 when he first heard about the team and had never played sled hockey before.

“I picked it up really quick, it’s kind of like monoskiing, it’s all balance and that is the hardest part,” Hamilton said.

He said he heard about the team through a friend who knew another sled hockey player. Hamilton went to one of the tournament games that same week and said he joined right away.

The Coyotes sled hockey won their first tournament game of 2018 on March 2 against the Los Angeles Kings in Scottsdale.

Schulenberg said despite some rough weekends trying to win games this season, they hope to advance as far as possible in the tournament and hope to take the championship.

The team last won the U.S. championship in 2015.