disability

Observations from an outlier

disability

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This page will hold data and evaluation of “boosting” experiments that I’m doing in order to get my heart and blood pressure to respond appropriately while climbing.  See ramp wheeling tests to learn more about post exercise hypotension (EH) , and why this limits performance in most quadriplegics.  First some background on what “boosting” is and why Doctors are trying to STOP this in sports. Basically put, Boosting is…

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icord ramp fitness test I keep score of wheelchair races at ICORD. Here is an example video of Jaime and Brad on the ramp. This shows the difference between a T6 paraplegic (gold medallist) vs a C5 tetraplegic. You can record your own effort, or see the current statistics. current records: NAME ABILITY TIME CHAIR RECORD Pat Anderson Amputee 42 sec bb world record Katie Able Bodied 1:14 bb…

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sexual health education for spinal cord injury These are a few videos we made with Dr. Elliott(sexual health doctor) discussing sperm retrieval and vibro-stimulation with Dr Ip (family doctor). This is basic information for quadriplegics that are going through rehab and want to avoid dangerous Autonomic Dysreflexia while being sexual. More here on things you didn’t know about orgasm on TED talks.

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Summer is in full swing and we are going to set up the climbing rig in Squamish on August 21st. We have done this route several times, but with everyone in different jobs. I’m going to put all the details here because much of the planning is buried in email and will be best to keep it public. We are going to hog the crag. Shamelessly. Once a year…

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In past posts, I’ve ranted about resistive vs capacitive screens for typing. Apple’s phone and tablet are great, but as a quad with poor hand function, most will prefer to use a finger nail to type. On my Nokia 5800 this works well and the new firmware has better smooth scrolling (inertia in the flicking though contact list for example). Some technology that came from eye tracking has seen…

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It’s now way past 2010… So, where’s my jetpack? Disability research integration is not happening. Not like it needs too. I’ve seen the problem from several points of view now and feel justified in a little rant. Scientists generally hate mixing with business, but this is the reality. The business of keeping a lab open and publishing regularly is difficult and in direct conflict with the new buzzwords: “Community…

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If Dr. Andrei Krassioukov gets his way, the days of some Paralympic athletes putting their lives in danger to increase their athletic performance may be over. Despite an international ban on the practice, some Paralympic athletes with spinal cord injuries are using a dangerous technique called “boosting” to increase their blood pressure in the heat of competition. Dr. Krassioukov studies autonomic dysfunctions, which are dysfunctions in the parts of…

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I’ve been following Boston Dynamics awhile now. They seem to be the most stable legs around..

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Amira (able bodied and a swimmer) sets the record for women at icord and gets close to the times of a T4 para in an everyday chair. She is using Pat Anderson’s Basket Ball chair here).

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Pat Anderson sets the record at 42 seconds! .. and he recovers to baseline heart rate and bloodpreesue quickly, “normally.”

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a java based framework for sensors Zephyr Open is an open source code project to provide a framework for BlueTooth Physiological Sensors. Heart rate and blood pressure Monitors, gps and Wii Remotes are supported. What kind of mash-ups can you envision? Games for rehab? Distributed games and Virtual coaching? **This project is available on github, but has been replaced by by my tracks (google). With the framework is a…

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Brad and Dave on the “Uncle Ben’s” route. This roof section was chosen as a testing grounds for larger climbs in California. We were “lucky” to some get strong wind on this day. Instead of suffering in hot sun all day, we froze instead… but could get good understanding of how the rig does in real weather. Was enough wind to make communication difficult and ropes frustrating to manage….