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.

Tale of the TankChair

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."

What Climbs Stairs Alone or in Pairs?

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."

The experience got Kamen thinking about how to improve on the chair.

After a little luck and a lot of work, Kamen came up with the iBot, a wheelchair that can climb stairs and balance itself on its rear wheels, allowing users to interact with others at eye level.

At $26,100, the iBot isn't cheap, but Bianchini said many insurers and state Medicaid programs cover the cost, and just recently the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs agreed to pick up the tab for any eligible veteran.

Futuristic Aid for the Elderly and Impaired

But while Kamen and Soden are working on more practical solutions to the limitations of wheelchairs, there are plenty of mad professors out there with projects that look as if they came out of a "Star Trek" episode.

At Toyota, the iFoot and iUnit could offer wheelchair users a sleek and stylish way to zip around the future.

The iFoot looks like a giant chair with legs, or a robot that escaped from a Japanese action cartoon.

It walks on two legs and is operated using joystick-style controls that reside in the chair's arms.

If that's too slow, though, the iUnit offers a design that resembles and moves like a motorcycle. The rider sits low to the ground as the vehicle rides along on four wheels.

Both devices are only in the concept phase, and their prototypes aren't ready for market.

An Idea With Legs

Another still "under construction" entry into the market is similar to Toyota's iFoot, and though it's less polished in appearance, it may be more practical in application.

The device is the brainchild of Atsuo Takanishi, a professor who specializes in mechanical engineering at Waseda University in Tokyo, and while the name is nothing to write home about -- WL-16RII -- the device could be if it makes it to market.

Not much more than a chair on legs, the device can balance itself, walk up and down stairs and raise and lower the rider to appear taller or shorter depending on preference.

"We began this research so as to provide a new level of mobility to the elderly and the handicapped," said Takanishi at a news conference on Wednesday.

Takanishi said the chair won't be ready for at least another five years while his team works on modifications to improve the device's speed and its ability to handle heavy loads.