America is an aging population - a majority of Baby Boomers (75%) are slated to retire in the next decade. To cut down on health care costs, many seek to age in place - by staying in their current homes - with some useful alterations incorporated.

Upgrades to a home are usually a good idea when deciding to maintain independence. Interior designers knowledgeable in Universal Design will be aware of the challenges that people face as they get older. Therefore, designers will usually design bathrooms with reinforced walls so that grab-bars can be installed, along with low or no-threshold showers, which will cut down on slips and falls by helping users keep their feet close to the ground. Entranceways might also be widened to accommodate wheelchair or walker usage and lighting may be increased to assist those with weaker vision. However, all the design elements in the world won't solve the problem of living alone if there are more serious problems than just aging - that's where homecare and rehab equipment comes in.

In the next 30 years, the U.S. population aged 65 and over will double to 70 million. About 80% of those over age 60 prefer to live independently. The most common medical conditions requiring home care are diabetes, heart disease, and cerebral vascular disease.

While numbers vary depending on sources, even the lower estimates put the number of Americans with an acute illness, a long-term medical condition, a permanent disability, or a terminal illness, at 8 million individuals. That number is well above the past projections by many top medical experts.

About 71% of the home health care patient population is over age 65 (approximately 955,200), as per the 2000 Census on Home Health Care Patients. The majority of this age group lives in the Northeast (73.6%) and the South (69.8%), with the Midwest (69.2%) and the West (65.7%) following close behind. There are a total of 1,355,300 home health care patients in all age groups, with 29.5% (400,100) under age 65.

Full story:
http://www.dotmed.com/news/story/9112

For Consumers

Read our consumer-oriented publications and learn how you can participate in the RERC Survey of User Needs (SUN) and/or become an RERC Consumer Advisor

Access to wireless services and technologies is vital to full participation in society for people with and without disabilities.  Therefore, consumers are an integral part of the RERC's research, development and training efforts .

Wireless RERC (Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center) has become a recognized leader on issues and solutions related to the accessibility and usability of mobile wireless products and services by people with disabilities. The Wireless RERC's mission is to promote equitable access to and use of wireless technologies by people with disabilities and encourage the adoption of Universal Design in future generations of wireless devices and applications.

Projects

Here, links are provided to Wireless RERC's projects focusing on consumer needs.

• Customer-Driven Usability Assessment
  This project's goal is to develop an online resource (mywirelessreview.com) for disseminating usability testing results to consumers, wireless product manufacturers, and retailers of mobile wireless devices and services.

• Facilitating User-Centered Research: The Consumer Advisory Network

  This project collects information about issues of access and usability of cell phones and other personal wireless products from the perspective of people with disabilities.

• Promoting Awareness of Access and Usability Needs for Wireless Devices
  This project promotes the awareness of accessibility among consumers and wireless providers, including retail sales staff.

Survey of User Needs

The Survey of User Needs helps us understand how people with disabilities use wireless products like cell phones and text messengers. We hope you will take the time to share information about your needs with us.

Consumer Advisory Network Newsletter

In order to keep our Consumer Advisory Network participants informed on our progress, we mail out our quarterly Consumer Advisory Network Newsletter.

Your Guide to Choosing a Cell Phone

Your Guide to Choosing a Cell Phone was developed and tested by the Wireless  RERC's Consumer Advisory Network to help persons with disabilities in choosing a phone to meet their needs.

Announcing the plan, IndiaHotelReview.com executive Ankit Rastogi said that these Standard Maps and Distance Charts are to be an integral feature of every destination showcased in the IHR Travel Guides.

Ankit commented on the launch, "Once you have arrived in a destination the most common question that is in everybody's mind is what to see.

"This assertion of ours is based on the overwhelming number of questions we get daily in our Travel QNA section."

He continued, "The web is flooded with sites offering maps to the travelers, but even a cursory look and you will feel that they are not reader friendly, loaded with all the details geographical or otherwise but these hardly appeal to an average tourist looking for easy information.

"Our Maps and unique distances chart are simple tools to assist the travelers with a clear cut idea about the standard set of places to visit.  

"The whole idea is to make traveling easy for the masses and bring them a step closer to the destinations.  "Ankit" said.

"To cite an example, Coorg is an important destination in the tourist map of Karnataka, a lot of confusion persists in the mind of tourists on how to approach Coorg.

"Starting right from the different names of Coorg, to the right order of visiting the various sightseeing locations.

"Our distance chart is tailor made specifically to show all the important locations from Madikari, the headquarters of Coorg district.

"Our endevaour to have maps and distance charts for places is in many ways pathbreaking, no travel website including the big guns have thought this way to facilitate a hiccups free traveling."

New Zealand seems hardly aware of how major demographic changes will impact our tourism industry.

I refer of course to population ageing worldwide and the resulting rise in the number
of people with disabilities (PWDs).

It was informative therefore to see several overseas references to these factors in
IT742.

For example, Jerry Bridge, MD of UK-based Bridge and Wickers International said
at TRENZ that in the UK, older clients are the second largest market and that his
company will continue to target them because they have more time and money.
Ruth Grau, president of Los Angeles-based Springboard Vacations talks of the
potential for 2,000 medical tourists per year to this country, resulting in a demand
for 30,000-40,000 bednights.

Accessible

To accommodate this potential demand, facilities will need to be accessible for
PWDs, and current medical tourists are recuperating at SkyCity Grand and City
Life because "they offer facilities for the disabled".

Finally, a review of The Jackson Report, commissioned for the Australian Federal
Tourism Minister, states that a far greater proportion of tomorrow's tourists will be
over 60.

In fact, The Jackson Report predicts that domestic tourism visits in Australia by
those 50 or older will jump from 27.7 million in 2007 to 35.2 million in 2030, and
that spend by this group will jump from $17,000 million to $21,000 million. Most of
the increases will come from the 60+ age group. Meanwhile, visit and spend by those
aged 15 to 49 are expected to remain at 2007 levels.

The greying of the population, the increase in tourists with disabilities, and our sad
lack of facilities for such tourists has been discussed in the New Zealand context
before (See IT639, IT699, IT705, IT739).

Question

The question therefore arises: when will our government and industry sit up and
take notice? The Ministry of Tourism's own data shows that the proportion of older
visitors in or to New Zealand is creeping up. Overall, about 45 percent of visitors
are now 45 years old or older. In the case of short-term visitors from China, the
proportion 45 or older is 56 percent, and for cruise ship passengers to New Zealand
- think development of port facilities - it is over 70 percent.

Youth

Surely we have the wrong end of the stick? We still intend to focus on the youth
market (IT 741/2) as part of our strategy to bolster visitor arrivals over the
upcoming summer (TNZ website), and intend to look to the young adventure-seeking
backpackers market as an industry lifeline.

This in spite of the fact that even in the backpacker market, grey is growing. A
YHA NZ user survey shows that those 50 or older comprised 14 percent in 2007
but 27 percent in 2008. And the fact that "adventure-seeking" is not top of the list
of things tourists do or intend to do here should also be a wake-up call. Top holiday
motivators tend to be fairly sedate. For internationals, "seeing attractions", and for
domestics "taking time out" top the list
.
In fact the number one activity of all tourists in NZ is "sightseeing". While it is
true that some of our ageing tourists will still want to jump off bridges or hang off
mountains, most will probably be less inclined to do so as they age and become less
able-bodied. And it is the growing ageing sector that New Zealand should be going
after. Why? Because, as Mr Bridge and The Jackson Report so rightly point out,
this will be the market with the time and the money

"A World of Solutions: Innovations for People with Disabilities" is an initiative from the Science and Technology Division of the Inter-American Development Bank, that was launched on May 7^th. We are looking to support the implementation of pilot projects that use innovation and technology to improve the quality of life and the economic and social inclusion of People with Disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The initiative is made up of two competitions:

Competition of proposals:

Financing (for up to US$ 50,000) is available to finance innovative projects to promote the social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities.

The competition is open to Disabled People's Organizations, NGOs, businesses, foundations, research centers and universities in all IDB member countries.

The selection criteria include: degree of innovation, impact on economic and social development, scalability and replicability, institutional capacity, and direct participation of people with disabilities. The deadline is June 30^th, 2009.

For guidelines and more information, please go to the website: http://www.iadb.org/topics/scitech/innovation/innovations.cfm?lang=en

Competition of problems and solutions:

We would like to know which problems people with disabilities (PWD) face in the region. Our blog is an interactive site where PWDs, DPOs, and anyone interested in the theme can share, vote, and prioritize the barriers that are more relevant. The voting will be open until June 30th, 2009. After July 15th, 2009 we will open a competition of solutions for the problems that received the most votes. Scientists, innovators, creative people from all areas can participate in the competition, and the IDB will finance the development of the best ideas.

 Interactive website: http://www.iadb.org/blogs/innovacion/ (The blog is open to English, Spanish and Portuguese but for now is mainly in Spanish.)

About one per cent of the cabins on new ships are usually accessible.

"The new Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas will have more than any other ship - 46 accessible cabins," says Schwartz. That's 1.7 per cent of cabins based on the 5,400-passenger ship that's scheduled to launch this winter.

"Cruise lines are also offering a wider range of categories for accessible cabins," says Schwartz. "They aren't just offering ones on lower decks or an ocean view cabin. There are accessible family suites and ones with balconies now."

One of the Crown Loft Suites on the Oasis has its own private elevator to access the loft level of the 737-square-foot, two-storey stateroom.

Full story:

http://www.thestar.com/travel/article/652214