Students Design Inexpensive, Lightweight Wheelchair for Children With Disabilities

Mechanical engineering students at Brigham Young University used off-the-shelf components to make a wheelchair for less than $500. It weighs just over 20 lbs.

Children with various genetic disorders often have limited walking ability, requiring them to use wheelchairs. Manual wheelchairs are hard to push which makes children to become tired and motorized wheelchairs are expensive and heavy.

A team of five undergraduate mechanical engineering students at Brigham Young University have designed, manufactured and constructed an inexpensive, lightweight, motorized wheelchair specifically for children with walking disability.

Risk of Future Disability to Child may Depend Upon Birthplace Decisions
Leading ethicists in the Journal of Medical Ethics argues that the risk of future long term disability to the child should weigh heavily in decisions about whether to give birth at home or in hospital.

The frame of the chair is made of PVC pipes with a battery under the seat and two electric motors power the front wheels. An armrest-mounted joystick allowing the kids to navigate wherever they want to go controls the device.

The whole device weighs just over 20 lbs. Less than $500 used to construct the wheelchair using off-the-shelf components, a considerable savings compared to commercially available motorized wheelchairs.

The students will soon be releasing the list of the parts and the construction plans for the wheelchairs, allowing anyone anywhere to build inexpensive motorized wheelchair.

Childhood Disability Jumps 16 Percent
The number of disabiled children has increased now as compared to the last decade, with a great increase in higher-income families.

Source-Medindia

Seven Genes Causing X-linked Intellectual Disability Identified
X-linked intellectual disability is due to defective genes on the X-chromosome is mainly found in men and affects brain signalling pathways.

Stroke-Related Disability Could be Lowered by Blocking Immune Response
Stroke is one of the major causes of permanent disability and the fourth leading killer in the world