Prosthetics Are Not Just For People...

While nearly all of the posts on this blog have been for people, animals are not immune to the issues that people also face. This is an inspirational story of Winter the Dolphin, a 3-month-old bottlenose dolphin found off the Florida coast with her tail caught in a crab trap. She was taken to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, where she received around-the-clock care. Handlers moved her through the water because she was too weak to swim on her own.

The net had badly damaged her tail, and as the days went by, pieces of it began falling off. In spite of the staff’s best efforts, her tail had to be amputated. But this was one dolphin who wasn’t going to give up. Winter learned to swim in a side-to-side motion like an alligator or shark. She could breathe and eat and move herself around. But her keepers were worried that the movements she had to make would eventually damage her spine. Enter prosthetic specialist Kevin Carroll of Hanger Orthopedic Group, Inc.

Carroll, who travels the world tackling the most difficult human cases, had called the aquarium to offer his services. A cast was made of Winter’s residual limb, and Carroll created a latex tail prosthesis for the dolphin. And even though she had only spent three months swimming with a tail as a baby, Winter was able to relearn the normal motions of her species and fully recover.

That was four years ago. Today, the dolphin wears a less cumbersome, updated version of her artificial flukes. Hundreds of amputees have visited her in Florida, where she resides at the aquarium, and the innovations that allowed her to regain natural movement in the water have been used to improve human prosthetics.

Mobile Office Work Station With High Seating Position

Check out this mobile work station meant for those who never want to leave their desk... or for those who have a hard time using standard height chairs. It is completely mobile and appears to be fairly lightweight making it easy to move about. There is also a version with two seats so you and a friend can move about together. To see more images and to order one of these work stations, check out this site.

UPDATE: Chris Waddell Takes On Mt Kilimanjaro

When Chris Waddell began his ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro he expected to become the first paraplegic to climb the 19,340-foot mountain unassisted. He planned to summit on his 41st birthday and to gather footage to create a documentary film of his adventure to help break down the barriers between able-bodied and people with disabilities and show what is possible. While he missed summitting on his birthday, and required assistance for a very short stretch of the upper mountain, he came to a new realization about the barriers he had created in his own life.

“I climbed the vast majority under my own power but I realize now that to even remotely think of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro unassisted is ridiculous,” Chris said from his home in Park City, Utah.

Chris began his ascent of the tallest freestanding mountain in the world on September 24, accompanied by his team of climbers, porters, and a camera crew. Tajiri, a former porter who had lost his leg in a rockslide while climbing in Mt. Kilimanjaro 2006, was once again climbing the mountain with the new prosthesis Chris’s One Revolution Foundation had given him.

The first few days went as planned as Chris cycled up to 10 hours a day with his custom-made, 36-gear hand cycle known as “Bomba.” On day five, he reached 18,000 feet and despite not summitting that day as planned, he considers it his greatest day on the mountain.

“I pedaled all day long, climbed 2,000 vertical feet, and didn’t fatigue,” he says. “It amazed me.”

To make it up the scree field below Gillman’s Point—a spot on the rim of the mountain’s volcanic crater at 18,638 feet that for some is accepted as a successful climb—Chris used a winch that allowed him to climb a fixed rope. To stay motivated, he counted pedal strokes, and when he tired of that, he focused on individual rocks that were 10 to 12 feet away. It took hours to climb the approximately 200-foot rope.

“Sometimes I wondered if I could make it 20 feet,” he said. “I was going so ridiculously slow and thought that this must be what it is like to drown within reach of shore.”

At that point Chris encountered an unexpected obstacle to summitting solely under his own power—a boulder field that turned out to be insurmountable without assistance. Chris finally had to admit that despite two years of preparation he couldn’t climb the entire mountain unassisted with his current system.

“I felt conflicted,” says Chris, who had kept a single-minded focus to climb the entire 29.2-mile trail under his own power. “I had done so much work and yet I faced something completely impassable. It was a difficult decision.”

In deciding to ask for help, Chris began to learn what the mountain had to teach him.

“It’s challenging for me to ask for help, partly in reaction to the injury and partly due to the disability,” says Chris, who broke his back in a ski accident when he was 20 years old and became the most decorated male skier in Paralympic history. “You don’t want to seem needy.”

On September 30, after pedaling over approximately 500,000 revolutions, Chris shifted out of first gear for the first time in three days and pedaled easily the few hundred yards to the summit. Tajiri summited for the second time in two days, becoming the first Tanzanian leg amputee to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro.

“Tajiri seemed a lot more confident than I’d seen him before,” Chris says. “Seeing him become whole again was amazing.”

Chris now has a new perspective on climbing mountains, both literally and figuratively.

“Part of the reason you climb a mountain is to learn something you wouldn’t have learned otherwise,” he says. “Now I realize that focusing on being independent is another way of drawing a wedge between you and the people around you. The glory of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro was really a collective team effort.”

Honda's Stride Assist System

Honda continues its foray into walking assist systems with the "Stride Assist System" that debuted recently at the Tokyo Motor Show. It is not quite clear what this device's intent is for: it could be used for the elderly or for those with difficulty walking long distances. Anyways, here is the press release issued by Honda:

"When walking is a struggle, you need a leg up. And that's literally what Honda's prototype Stride Management Assist device is designed to provide. A motor helps lift each leg at the thigh as it moves forward and backward. This helps lengthen the user's stride, making it easier to cover longer distances at a greater speed.

A lightweight, simple design with a belt worn around the hips and thighs was created to reduce the wearer's load and to fit different body shapes. More than 130 patents have been applied for pertaining to the walking assist devices, which are currently being tested in real-world conditions to evaluate their effectiveness. As a company that values mobility, Honda began research into a walking device in 1999. The cumulative study of human walking, along with research and development of technologies conducted for Honda's advanced humanoid robot, ASIMO, made these developments possible."

Joe Swanson: Animated Hero

Family Guy’s Lieutenant Joseph “Joe” Swanson is over-zealous, fearless, full of bravado, short tempered, and operates by the book. He is also a capable police officer who does not get around via a patrol car. Instead, a wheelchair is his main mode of transportation.

Joe is wildly enthusiastic and has developed massive upper-body strength. He does everything his co-characters do (and more), including water skiing, sledding, roller skating, choreographing local musicals, driving, and—in one episode—climbing a street lamp. Joe’s catch phrases include the Steven Seagal-esque “Let's do it!, Get Some!” and “Bring it on!” He loves macho action and martial arts films.

These are just a few of the reasons why America loves Joe. His popularity is due in part to the fact that Joe is a welcome departure from the all-too-common portrayal of disabled people on television as bitter, helpless, and fighting to overcome huge obstacles inherent in their disabilities. Family Guy not only moves well beyond this stereotype but actually goes on to have fun with Joe’s disability.

Joe is a breakthrough. His plotlines are hilarious, and his character portrays disabled people as being far from perfect. Even the manner in which he became paralyzed is not exempt from humor: On Christmas Eve in 1989, as Joe investigates a robbery at an orphanage, he ends up battling a Grinch on the orphanage rooftop. During the fisticuffs, he slides on a roller skate, falls off the roof, and injures his spine.

Joe is never left out of the show’s twisted and politically incorrect brand of humor. Instead, his treatment is equal to that of other characters—he is included in the ribbing, just the way the others are made fun of. In fact, when Joe corrects another character who mistakes his physical disability for mental incapacity, the character accuses Joe of “just splitting hairs.”

In another episode, while marooned on a desert island for months, another Family Guy character eats Joe’s legs, claiming that Joe doesn’t need them anyway. When the men are rescued, Joe gets leg transplants, but still can’t walk because the donor was also handicapped.

It is no wonder that Joe has become one of television’s most beloved disabled characters, animated or otherwise. And until more disabled people hit the airwaves, there’s every indication that Joe’s popularity will continue to skyrocket. In his case, animated fiction is far better than media-driven “fact.”