Providing Culturally Competent Disability Services to Persons Born in other Countries May 6 - 8, 2002

Wooden wheelchair for the Japanese elderly

Hara, T.
Tohoku Fukushi University Social Work Department
Kunimi 1-8-1, AOBA-KU
Sendai, Miyagi-Japan 981-0943
tetsuya@tfu-mail,tfu.ac.jp

Abstract

Japan has two cultural issues concerning the design of wheelchairs for the elderly. The different needs for this type of assistive technology are as follows:

1. People who have spent their lives deeply immersed in the traditional wood culture long for a return to the "good old days" in the last stage of their lives. A wheelchair, which is converted from the conventional metal frame to one where a wooden chair is assembled on top of a metal cart, would satisfy the demand for the soft touch of wooden furniture.
2. Those who have not lost their traditional habits, even after 100 years since the Meiji Restoration, continue to exalt personal cleanliness. Getting their hands and sleeves dirty from the use of wheelchair hand rims would be thought disgusting. The des ign of the wooden wheelchair excludes the hand rim mechanism and provides power from disk motors on both wheel axles.

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