This month, lawmakers, educators, and caregivers in Pennsylvania gather to bring awareness to the issue of barriers to the mobility challenged. The Sun Gazette Reports:

Recognizing the entire month of May is Barrier Awareness Month across the nation, Renee Sluzalis, the Center for Independent Living of North Central Pennsylvania’s executive director, reasoned why the plight of the disabled needs recognized.

“It’s about bringing awareness to physical barriers or attitude barriers and to let people know there are still boundaries,” Sluzalis said. These barriers can vary from having difficulty opening doors or being rejected from job opportunities.

Accessibility for the disabled is important in the greatest country in the world, according to Campana. “When I think of accessibility, I think of freedom,” he said. “We’re going to make the city more friendly for the disabled.”

Belgian researchers have developed a brainwave reading headset which requires no batteries, and no external power source, overcoming a powerful obstacle to using this type of technology for day to day assisted living for the disabled. Combine this assistive technology with a little 4G WiFi, predictive neuroscience, some useful computer software, perhaps a GPS tracking device attached to an iPhone controlled electric scooter/wheelchair or exoskeleton, and the human body is on track to become more of a simple brain house than a work horse. The possibilities are limitless.

A lightweight battery-free headset can continuously monitor human brainwaves, and is powered by body heat and sunlight.

The portable electroencephalogram (EEG) device resembles a set of headphones. It could provide wireless monitoring of patients at risk of seizures, have cars or other machinery respond to stressed users, or provide new ways to interact with computer games.

Researchers at the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC), in Belgium, created the headset.

Microsoft has a small, but growing, business unit dedicated to robotics. Continuing the recent business trend of anticipating the needs of baby boomers, one of the product lines being incubated in the robotics department is an assistive technology called the uBot. The uBot is meant to navigate a home, enabling people with limited mobility to maintain an independent homelife, longer. While it is currently being thought of as an aide for the elderly, clearly it will have further general use amongst any segment of the population suffering from mobility challenges.

The uBot-5 is a two-wheeled, dynamically stable robot with two arms and a rotating trunk.Click to view larger image. Designed to move easily through a human home environment and could someday be used for elder care. Patrick Deegan and Bryan J. Thibodeau, graduate students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, used Microsoft’s Robotics Studio software to develop uBot-5. Using the attached display screen, someone could see what the robot sees, someday enabling a doctor or relative to check in on a senior citizen who is living with the aid robot. The uBot-5 can pick itself up off the floor, maintain its balance as it moves its two arms and learn from its experiences.

Computerworld has pictures.

Is going to the doctor a pain? For a lot of mobility challenged individuals, not feeling well can mean a significant effort simply to get up and get to the doctor or hospital when you already feel bad. Honeywell recently won the 2008 Medical Design Excellence Award their Genesis DM Remote Care Device, an assistive technology which allows doctors to remotely assess a patient and recommend an appropriate course of action with as little disruption to the patient’s daily routing as possible.

The award-winning Honeywell HomMed remote patient monitoring device is ideal for both the patient and the medical professional, using text or voice prompts to guide patients through a series of yes/no questions that allow medical professionals to monitor and receive a thorough health assessment.

The Honeywell HomMed remote patient monitoring device is part of the LifeStream Ecosystem and provides patients with an easy-to-use device for the home. The three-part LifeStream ecosystem, providing cost-effective care for patients at home, includes the patient-facing Genesis DM device, software applications and service. Patients suffering from a variety of chronic conditions, such as congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary artery disease, diabetes and hypertension, can use the Genesis DM device to assess their condition in the privacy of their homes. This information is transmitted securely over the internet to their caregiver for monitoring and the appropriate intervention if necessary.

Science fiction? Religious zealotry? A simple dream? No. Mere fact. Argo Medical Technologies has developed a new exoskeleton intended to restore mobility including standing, sitting, walking, climbing stairs, and more to quadriplegic and paraplegic patients.

Clinical trials are currently underway, and public availability is expected sometime in 2009.

While the study was specifically carried out with stroke survivors, once can presume that it could also be beneficial to help restore full mobility and proper gait to accident victims, surgical recovery patients, and victims of disease.

Newswise — For the more than 700,000 people who experience a stroke each year, many never regain the ability to walk like they did prior to their stroke. But physical therapists, using a specialized treadmill, have discovered a new way to help stroke patients walk again—correctly.

The results of their study, conducted at Baylor Institute for Rehabilitation (BIR), appear in the April 2008 issue of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.