U-STEP: A WALKER DESIGNED FOR PARKINSON’S PATIENTS by Laura Wazen and Charlie
Hi. My name is
Laura Wazen and this is my friend Charlie. Today we want to show you a
very cool walker you may not have seen before, that is especially good for
people who are having Parkinson’s Disease. So, one of the things about
Parkinson’s Disease, is that sometimes, it can be a little bit hard to control
your momentum if you’re walking with a traditional walker- that is in a sense,
rolling away from you. So the neat thing about this U-Step walker is that
it will only move if you squeeze the handles. So if Charlie
wants to take a step, he squeezes the handles, and takes a couple of steps
forward. Now the neat thing about this is, if he’s feeling unsteady or
needed to stop, all he would have to do is release the handles. And then
he could regain his balance, and he can then take a step forward which is a
really, really cool thing! Another neat thing about this walker is that
if a person is having a problem taking a step forward, (they’re freezing for
example), it has a little button, which is right here, that if you push the
button, it puts a red laser on the floor that serves as a visual cue, so that
you can just look down and see the red line, and then the person initiates a
step by stepping over the line. Charlie, could you push the button on the
laser? (Charlie demonstrates pushing the button). The laser would project
on the ground, and then he could use that red line as a visual cue to take a
step, and start walking again. There you go.
Very good, Charlie.
