This article is from the archives of the UB Reporter.

UB-developed products make life—and giving—easier

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  • “These products are aimed at improving the everyday quality of life of individuals” ,

    Jim Leahy,
    director of development, T2RERC
By LOIS BAKER
Published: December 10, 2008

Is there someone on your gift list who could use a little help opening the jar of candied cherries for the holiday fruitcake?

Or needs to raise the thermostat without getting up from the recliner?

Maybe there’s a child on your list who likes to color but could use a little practice staying inside those pesky lines?

If the answer is “yes,” UB’s Center for Assistive Technology can make shopping as easy as “Ho Ho Ho.”

The Center’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology Transfer (T2RERC) takes existing technologies and transforms them into new, marketable assistive-technology products that make life easier for people old, young and in between.

“These products are aimed at improving the everyday quality of life of individuals,” says Jim Leahy, co-principal investigator and director of development for the T2RERC, “and make wonderful gifts for loved ones during this holiday season.”

Here are some of the products developed with the help of UB, and the Web sites where they can be ordered:

• Lids Off Jar Opener

• Line Butler—reconnects an off-the-hook telephone

• Kelvin—voice-activated thermostat

• White Rodgers touch-screen thermostat

• Surfboard—voice-controlled remote control

• Coinulator—for children learning to count money

• StrongArm Cane—a unique one-piece handle featuring an integral forearm brace.

• BumpaColor—raised-line coloring book

• Kodak EasyShare Printer

And keep an eye out in 2009 for Automated Pill Crusher from Pill Crusher Ventures, LLC and a product from Tupperware, Leahy says. For a full list of products developed by UB to make life easier, click here.

People with disabilities rely on assistive-technology devices and services to sustain, regain or increase their functional capabilities. About 13 million people with disabilities report using assistive devices to provide functional capabilities needed to participate in major life activities. Advances in assistive devices rely on advances in the underlying technologies and the transformation of those advances into new assistive-technology products.