Tag: Health Ed

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Wheels for All -Cycling Projects

Cycling Projects is a national-wide UK charity whose focus is to provide community engagement projects so that all community members have access to cycle on a regular basis, including older people or those with restricted mobility, but especially for people with disabilities.

Wheels for All is their flagship service. It is a great initiative designed to increase the cycling accessibility and level for people with disabilities. This is achieved out of the 50 Wheels For All centres that are dotted throughout England and Wales delivering a select range of programmes and services.

Most inspiringly, these centre provide programs by being fitting out with a fleet of purpose built and adapted cycles that cater for a range of physical, mental and mobility issues. Some bike are modified two, three or four wheelers, some are for individual riders, others cater for pair, trios or four riders as well as bikes that accommodate wheelchair integration , recumbents, hand-powered, pedal-powered and tandem for the visually impaired, to name a few.

These bikes are also unique in that the design is comfortable (and enjoyable) both for the participant and their assisting partner and there is a range of bicycles that can be used depending on the needs of the participant. I was impressed with the range and versatility of the adapted bike that were on offer.

(Ohh, is that Sir Chris Hoy the UK track star in the bottom photo on the left?! I think so!!). At first glance of these bikes involved in these programs, I am immediately impressed that as much as can be given the physical control of the participant, the bicycles are designed so that the participants are physically engaged as much as is possible in the actual propulsion of the bicycle. For me, this is a critical element for projects such as this, otherwise the claim of increasing the opportunity for cycling is not justified if the only person cycling is the participants’ attendee.

I think it is equally important to have a social space in which to ride, (which these programs appear to provide), as well as having an authentic track or place to ride on. This last element for me is very important as cycling is a medium whereby people traverse through space-time geographies, and that is part of the thrill of accomplishment of going for a ride. Additionally, being in an outdoor environment where cyclist can feel the natural elements like the wind, the cold, the rush of an increase in speed or the inertia of a sudden stop are as valuable to the experience as the biological feedback experienced from riding; the heat in generated by the exertion of riding, a little sweat on your brow, the suggestion of tired legs, the way hips might wiggle as your legs go up and down –all come from being on bikes.

In the same vein, those who are unable to physical contribute to the riding, are just as much an asset and receptive to these dynamics. Other similar projects that cater to a different segment of the population, such as Cycling without Age  attest to the insurmountable benefits derived by participants from the excitement of being outdoors, the wind rushing over faces, chasing the person, watching the landscape rolling along beside the bike and just being out and about and part of a normal healthy, positive and social daily activity.

I also think it is brilliant that in May this year, they held their own Wheels for All Conference. I am a big fan of conferences as I think it is a wonderful opportunity for like-minded people to get together, and more so than a festival, to have dedicated and focused time set aside to discuss pressing issues, new developments, extend networks, identify trends and to increase awareness and exchange ideas. It was ingenious to hold this conference in conjunction with the bigger Cycle City Active City Conference that was going on at the same time as well.

Below is a simple 2 min video detailing the main ideas of the project.

Photo image sources: Cycling.org.uk, Lavish Connect & Bathnes.gov.uk

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Japan: Medical Use of Bicycles – enjoyable rehabilitation

by Sachie Togashiki

 

I found an interesting article about the development of bicycles for rehabilitation for hemiplegic patients. Sufferers of apoplexy, a percentage of which is overrepresented in mortality rate in Japan, tend to have a secondary disease, which is hemiplegic, after surgery. In order to recover from hemiplegia, rehabilitation is needed, but it usually bores patients or needs someone’s help. To solve this problem, two authors, Hiroshi Shoji and Takeshi Aoki at Chiba Institute of Technology, are trying to develop bicycles for easier and more fun rehabilitation.

How does it work?

The attraction of using bicycles as a rehabilitation tool is its sustainability, non-boringness, and refreshing feeling which comes from outside exercise. Although there is the attraction which the authors can make use of, they also need to cover some anxieties such as safety and uneasiness when pedaling. In order to guarantee safety, a foot which is not paralysed is applied a load to, so that a rider cannot pedal too fast, which results in a stable and low pedaling speed. In addition, a load is applied also to reduce patients’ uneasiness caused by a feeling of unbalanced heaviness depending on feet. The authors used an electrically-powered tricycle made by YAMAHA for an experiment and succeeded in keeping a low pedaling speed by applying a load to a healthy foot. They are going to conduct an experiment to mitigate patients’ uneasiness and to develop a smoothness when pedaling.

Significance

The article is crucial because this is an academic article which was published as a documentation of JSME (The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers) Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics and it shows a new significant way of using bicycles. Because riding on a bicycle is lots of fun and can be done without any permanent help, the authors suggested using bicycles for rehabilitation for the hemiplegic patient, which means bicycles can be used not only for town development and disarmament, which I will report on in two upcoming posts, but for medical uses. The use of bicycles as a rehabilitation tool might enhance patients’ motivation to recover from hemiplegia and contribute to a more positive future.

Additionally, in order to get the article, I paid for it, while most of the Australian articles are available for free. This made me think about freedom for students to research in Japan, which might be a little poorer than Australia.

 

Shoji, H., & Aoki, T. (2014). Development of rehabilitation bicycle for hemiplegic patients. Proceedings of the JSME Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics, 14(3P2-G03), 3P2-G03(1)-3P2-G03(2) Retrieved from http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110009967356

 

Sachie Togashiki is our Guest Blogger, unveiling some of Japan’s bicycle culture, from 11th April to 24th April.

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Fleet Farming

What is Fleet Farming?

– A community-driven, low emission distributed urban farming model
– Build home gardens less than .25 acres throughout the community
– Use bike-powered transportation for maintenance and harvest of produce
– Sell produce at local farmers markets, food trucks, and local restaurants

Fleet Farming

The ‘Fleet Farmer’ name refers to ‘Farmers’ on a ‘Fleet’ of bicycles, helping to manage the grow-to-harvest process of urban farming. These Farmers will be made up of members of the surrounding community and members from partnering organizations. Each Farmer will sign-up for a scheduled bike ride once per week, traveling an average of 8-10 miles from the Winter Park Urban Farm to East End Market, and back.

Throughout the ride, the Fleet Farmers will stop at various home gardens participating in the program. Each garden will be regularly maintained, including tilling, watering, removal of weeds and pests, application of organic fertilizer, harvesting of the fruits and vegetables throughout the year, and distribution of the local produce to local venues using pedal power.

In Phase 2, the Fleet Farmers will also help in collecting compost from the restaurants in route that are interested in providing pre and post-consumer food waste to develop the final piece of the closed-loop system.

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This bike has Multiple Sclerosis

This remarkable health education initiative really personifies how bicycles can innovate positive social change – in this case, raising awareness about Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

MS Community Education

This initiative brilliantly mixes science, bicycle design, expert collaboration and cyclists to produce a community education campaign where a normal bicycle was augmented in a variety of ways to represent the MS symptoms.

To achieve this, each of the major executive functions on the bike such as the fork, handlebars, seat, frame and gears were altered so that the impact of the disease could be experienced first hand when you try to ride the bike – thus demonstrating the daily challenges that suffers have trying to operate their bodies as this autoimmune disease destroys their nervous system.

Ad Week promoted this ad campaign by giving it international recognition for its ingenuity and creative approach – and very effectively linked this issue to the lived experience of Penelope Conway who is an MS Suffer and informatively and humorously writes about what Multiple Sclerosis really feels like.

The Ad

This bike has Multiple Sclerosis video (2 mins) explains the rationale and research that has gone into the strategic design of this bike.

 

This community awareness campaign is not only effective in reaching a wide audience and communicating its message, but it is clear and has immediate impact. One of the best aspects is that it is specifically designed to be experiential and engaging for the public.

This campaign is a great example of how a creative approach to presenting a public health issue can generate excitement, consideration and interest about an issue such as MS. In doing so, it is highly successful in prompting public education and discussion about what MS is – and the metaphor of a ‘rider’ trying to ‘control a bike’ as being similar to what an MS suffer experiences to control their body, is a stroke of genius. Most people who have no contact or exposure to MS, will be able to easily relate to how difficult it can be to ride a bike if there are mechanical problems.

If only there were more interactive, dynamic and enterprising projects such as this one that can equally correlate the public’s normative experience (of riding a bike) with a emerging/public issue (MS Awareness).

Want to try riding it?

Those in Melbourne next month (March 2016), will have the opportunity to try to ride this bike for yourself at the MS Melbourne Cycle on March 6, 2016 by registering at bike@thisbikehasMS.com.

The team