Inventions Get Elderly and Disabled Moving

April 26, 2006 -- -- Living in rural Arizona, Brad Soden and his wife, Liz, were avid outdoor enthusiasts until August 1999, when Liz lost the use of her legs as a result of a car accident.

The crash made it difficult for Liz to enjoy the activities she, her husband and five kids once loved, and when the family was away at a cabin in the woods in 2004 and a herd of elk came running by, the extent of Liz's limitations became too much for Brad to bear.

"She was crying because she couldn't come out and see the elk," he said. "She kept getting stuck in the dirt, so I got the idea to build a wheelchair that could handle any terrain."

It was then and there that the TankChair -- an all-terrain wheelchair was born.

Though Brad's invention is one of a kind, he's not the only inventor inspired to create high-tech ways to help the physically challenged get around.

Soden built the device in his garage, where he said he spent "too many hours and drank too many beers" in its building.

While the tank chair can already handle almost any terrain thanks to its tanklike treads, Soden took out a second mortgage on his house to pay for work he's doing on a second chair, which he claims will be able to navigate stairs.

Now he's on the verge of turning an invention he created to help his wife enjoy life the way she had before her accident into a classic American success story.

"When I built this, I built it for my wife," he said. "But I kept perfecting it, and after lots of trial and error -- I was the crash-test dummy, of course -- I came up with something pretty useful."

Possibly best known for the Segway, his futuristic "human transporter," rogue inventor Dean Kamen has put his mind and the minds of the engineers, inventors and business staff at Deka -- his company -- to work on a new kind of wheelchair.

"He [Kamen] was going to a shopping mall in New Hampshire," said Tony Bianchini, a spokesman for Independence Technology. "He saw this kid in a wheelchair and he needed two friends to help him just to get over a curb."