A special center outside Tel Aviv specializes in creative solutions for the disabled. These can be as sophisticated as special consoles for single-handed use of a computer - or as simple as a knife-and-fork contraption which keeps food on the plate while it's being sliced.
by Daniella Ashkenazy
For disabled people, life is a series of small hurdles - from putting on a pair of shoes to pouring hot water from a kettle. In many cases, the solutions to these small but infinitely irksome problems that can complicate and embitter a disabled person's life are simple. But, it takes time, energy and ingenuity to deduce that a standard wooden cutting board can be spiked with several small nails, to impale an unpeeled potato for an amputee. Or to turn an upturned hard-bristle scrub brush into a cardholder for a rheumatic card player.
The spiked cutting board and scrub brush are only two of hundreds of makeshift gadgets and thousands of specially-designed devices intended to assist the handicapped. Many are on display, or cataloged in the reference library at Milbat - the Hebrew acronym for the Israeli Center for Technological Aids, Housing and Transportation for the Disabled.
Milbat, a non-profit organization located in the rehabilitation wing of Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer outside Tel Aviv, functions as a diagnostic and information center, conducting seminars for professional staff from hospitals, rehabilitation centers and municipalities, who work with the disabled. It also offers individual counseling to the disabled and their families, displays equipment for the disabled and advises consumers as to where the displayed items are available.
One-on-one counseling may lead to a demonstration of how one can use a foam rubber sleeve of pipe insulation to grasp a teaspoon; another result may be that a regular teaspoon is heated and bent in the right shape for a person with limited movement. Counseling may also provide the address of a manufacturer of a forks set inside a horse-shoe shaped knife on a spring mechanism, which allow a one-armed diner to cut off a bite-size piece of a sizzling steak without the meat sliding off his plate. If the patient has the means, far more sophisticated and expensive solutions may be suggested. In one case, the director of an Israeli hospital, permanently paralyzed on one side by a stroke, was able to use his PC by replacing the standard keyboard with a special five-key computerized control panel designed for fighter pilots, who must operate sophisticated air-borne computers with one hand.
with open minds - who realize that every patient has different needs, which at times require innovative solutions. In complicated or special cases, when ready-made solutions do not exist, two dozen volunteers adapt and build special technical aids. It is a matter of adopting and adapting technology designed for other functions, says Danny Barak, a mechanical engineer and former chief of the scientific services department at the Weizmann Institute, who is both president of the board of Milbat and a volunteer "gizmo-maker."
Barak first got involved in this kind of work 25 years ago, following the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He describes the first time medical staff approached him, 25 years ago, to find a way for a soldier with a spinal cord injury, who could not press the regulation call button, to summon a nurse. On his way to the hospital, Barak envisioned focusing a weak laser beam at the patient's eyelids, which would be covered with a special silver paint. The patient would then move his head so that the laser beam would reflect from the eye paint to a photo-electric cell, which would activate a relay to summon the nurse. However, after evaluating the patient, Barak realized immediately that a simple mercury switch - which can be activated with minimal hand movement - would do the trick.
Eventually, awareness of the need for a center that could provide both information and "special solutions" lead to the establishment, in 1981, of Milbat and of the Weizmann Institute's Technology and Accessibility for the Disabled Project (T&A) - a public framework through which scientists can use the Weizmann Institute's labs to provide innovative solutions when needed. While such work demands both a creative mind and sensitivity ("working with, not for, the patient"), not all the solutions require sophisticated or expensive gadgetry.
Other requests do create a need for state-of-the-art technology. For, instance, Barak was approached by the family of an Alzheimer patient who tended to get up and wander around the house at night unsupervised. He and his associates rigged up a motion sensor - originally designed for protection against burglars - so it would cover a fan-shaped area 60 cm. above the patient's bed. If the individual sat up in bed, a buzzer sounded in a family member's bedroom.
Over the years, Barak has been invited to speak before professional gatherings - including presentations at international congresses of rehabilitation personnel. However, steps have recently been taken to spread the word about some of the Milbat/T&A Project's simple and sophisticated solutions, in order to demonstrate to others how to organize and operate similar technical teams.
In January of 1997, Milbat organized an exhibition in Amman, Jordan, at an Israeli trade fair. In May of 1997, the Weizmann Institute compiled a 50-page illustrated English-language brochure presenting some of its gadgets and outlining how project members approach problem-solving. The raison d'être for promoting such projects in Israel and elsewhere was underscored on the opening page of the brochure in a quote from one of the countless individuals helped by Milbat, who told Barak: "Don't try to make my life easy, it will never be such. Make it possible."