Review on Powered Mobility and Meal Preparing Assistive Devices for Physically Disabled Persons

Abstract

Over the past decade, disability and aging have become serious global problems. The rapid growth of disabled and aging people in the society necessitates the employment of caregivers to assist them in performing everyday activities. However, caregiving is highly expensive with high injury rates. To transfer the people who cannot help themselves, a transfer aide becomes essential equipment. Mobility assistive devices can increase the mobility and reduce the risk of injury for both disabled and caregiver, particularly in bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Although many smart devices were invented, they all required some degree of manual operations and assistance but assistive devices with a fully autonomous operation capability is never achieved. The paper presents a brief review of powered mobility assistive and meal preparing devices for physically disabled used in homes.