Simple Ways to Make Your Home More Accessible
Reply
If you didn’t build your home to have a universal design, it can be difficult (and expensive) to remodel. Whether you or a loved one has limited accessibility, creating universal space in your home doesn’t have to be an added hurdle. The best way to prepare for universal accessibility is by designing it from the start. However, many people lose mobility gradually over time and what was once a comfortable living space has become a maze of accessibility challenges. Rather than spending an arm and a leg to remodel or move, making small, simple changes to your home can mean the difference between physical independence and limitation. Here are ten ways you can improve your home’s accessibility.
1. Limit stairs at entries
For [...]
You might want to block out Thursday, April 11 for a trip to Boston. If you are anything like me, a trip like this takes some serious planning to provide for mobility equipment and assure access.
Why go through the trouble? After all, I don’t think Boston is all it's cracked up to be, ‘specially for the mobility challenged. It’s not the easiest place for us to move around. In this case, however, it’s a veteran and one of our own that’s being honored, so the effort will be worth it.
His name is Keith Zeier, a wounded ‘warrior’ who was injured in an avalanche in Huntington Ravine on Mount Washington back in January this year. In April, he'll be retelling the harrowing experience at a $125-per-person fundraiser at The Suites 
Many of us know a grizzled and debilitated old gentleman who has given up on life, or even someone of the younger set who through accident has become mobility challenged and bitter.
Those who spend their time cooped up in front of a TV set probably will simply sink deeper and deeper into their own remorse balking at the hand they have been dealt.
I prefer to think of it as the path God has chosen for me to walk. In my case Multiple Sclerosis has relegated me to a mobility scooter which has been a tremendous help in improving my quality of life, as well as my companionship with my wife and our friends.
You can do a lot of good from the back of a mobility scooter, often small things that let people know you are no normal disability 
by State Farm
Spring is pothole time in New England, as it is in many parts of the country. A well-developed pothole can do considerable damage to the running gear of a car or truck, so many drivers intentionally swerve to avoid the sudden jolt. This risks a more severe collision with an object or other vehicle.
There are also "potholes" for mobility equipment around the home. They may not do as much physical damage at speeds less than four miles per hour, but they can still set up accidents that can injure or embarrass the unwary mobility challenged operator.
The problem is “universal design” characteristics developed for bipeds without consideration of the elderly, the war wounded and those who have sustained 
We've all seen “that guy” cruising through the departments of big box stores. The one with those cheeks and rolls pouring over the seats of mobility scooters winding his way through the aisles.
For the truly obese, mobility scooters and power chairs are often the vehicles of choice.
At first I thought retailers were just catering to seniors by lining up several mobility scooters at the entrances of their establishments. But once inside I frequently find they have been taken over not by the elderly, but the obese.
There is a serious problem in this country we are not addressing.
Obesity is costly. According to the American Obesity treatment Association obesity-related health care costs totaled an estimated $117 billion in 2000. 
Studies are being cranked out regularly on how prolonged sitting can significantly shorten life spans of the sedentary. They have real meaning for us who are mobility challenged.
Unfortunately, I spend most of my day on a mobility scooter or in a chair. So, what should I do about it?
It is really common problem that affects many of us who are disabled, but it is not an excuse for just giving up.
I have been blessed with relatively good upper body strength, probably from moving around a rather sedate lower body. Up until about six years ago I was going to the gym three times a week, but as my Multiple Sclerosis took a stronger and stronger hold of my lower body I sort of drifted back into little or no conscious exercise.
I paid 
When my wife and I decided we had to do something to make transporting my mobility scooter easier, we quickly encountered a chicken-or-egg type of problem.
At the time, she was driving a Ford Focus. Though the scooter easily breaks down into four pieces that fit neatly into the trunk (but with no room for anything else), lifting each piece over the wall of the trunk to get it in became an issue.
If we went shopping and made four or five stops that meant my wife was having put the strain own her back muscles 8-10 times a trip.
Besides this impact on her, the trips became less enjoyable as I didn't want her to have to unload and load the scooter so many times. I often opted to sit in the car rather than put her through the hassle.
We