Date Presented 03/28/20
The collaboration between OT and engineering can bring complementary perspectives together to create assistive technology that makes significant global impacts. In Colombia, two assessments were administered to identify factors that influence participation in home and community environments for individuals with ambulatory challenges. This research project provides a foundation for OT in Colombia to work with local engineering programs to identify home and community barriers.
Primary Author and Speaker: Lucy Tamberrino
Additional Authors and Speakers: Kimberly Greenberg, Karen Jacobs
Contributing Authors: Rebecca Pierce Khurshid, Marcela Múnera, Carlos Cifuentes
PURPOSE: Interprofessional collaboration between occupational therapy practitioners and engineers has the potential to bring complementary perspectives together to create Assistive Technology (AT) devices that make significant impacts at the global societal level (Mihailidis & Polgar, 2016). AT is most successful when its design and implementation matches the user, activity, and context; this idea is best depicted by the Human Activity Assistive Technology (HAAT) model (Cook & Polgar, 2015). This poster describes the process by which a Boston University professor in occupational therapy and a Boston University professor in engineering worked collaboratively with two entry-level occupational therapy graduate students to assist in the assessment of AT devices in Bogotá, Colombia. Through a one-month interprofessional service learning experience in Colombia, the occupational therapy graduate students provided consultation to the Robotics Lab located at the Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito, and collaborated with engineering students on their robotic walker project (Cifuntes & Frizera, 2016). To create and assess the effectiveness of AT devices for mobility, the occupational therapy students wanted to obtain more information on the contexts in which individuals with ambulatory impairments use AT devices. The purpose of this study was to examine the environmental, social, and client factors that influence participation in home and community environments for adults with ambulatory impairments in Bogotá, Colombia; and assess the benefits and limitations of the current forms of AT for individuals that use AT for mobility (i.e., canes, walkers, and wheelchairs).
DESIGN: This descriptive study identified the most common features that individuals with ambulatory impairments reported. Thirty participants (mean age = 44.3 years) were recruited from an outpatient rehabilitation facility in Bogotá, Colombia. The inclusion criteria for participation was: the individual had an ambulatory impairment and did not have a communication disorder (i.e., aphasia).
METHODS: Two questionnaires were used to collect data from participants. One of the researchers, who was fluent in Spanish, read the instructions for the completion of the questionnaires, while the other researcher recorded the responses. Using frequency distributions and visual analysis, an exploratory analysis was performed to uncover patterns in the dataset. Participant comments, in response to questionnaire items, were recorded as qualitative data; thematic analysis was used to identify general patterns in this data.
RESULTS: The data suggests that the main environmental barriers that individuals with ambulatory impairments experienced in the home/community were: stairs, lack of elevators/chairlifts, uneven sidewalks/pathways, lack of curb cuts, and a shortage of accessible public transportation. Additionally, individuals with ambulatory impairments expressed that they experienced some stigma in the community, but overall, found that people in their home/community were willing to help them. Satisfaction levels and preferences for specific AT components were substantially dependent on the type of AT device the participant used. The main AT devices used by participants were manual wheelchairs and canes/crutches. The data suggests that users of manual wheelchairs are substantially less likely to be satisfied with AT dimensions, weight, durability, adjustability, and comfort than users of canes/crutches.
CONCLUSIONS: This project provides a foundation for OT in Colombia to work with local engineering programs. It is anticipated that this collaboration will have an impact on identifying home and community barriers for individuals with ambulatory challenges.
References
Mihailidis, A. & Polgar, J. M. (2016). Occupational therapy and engineering: Being better together. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 83(2), 68-71. doi: 10.1177/0008417416638842
Cook, A. M., & Polgar, J. M. (2015). Cook & Hussey’s assistive technologies: Principles and practice (4th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby Elsevier
Cifuntes, C.A. & Frizera, A. (2016). Human-robot interaction strategies for walker-assisted locomotion. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing
