Independence through assistive devices
When someone says it’s impossible, I refuse to believe it. If there is a problem there is also always the potential to overcome it. Especially together.
An idea to improve independence
Ean lives with Muscular Dystrophy (MD): “I choke with a high risk of aspiration pneumonia and I need frequent oral suctioning of my mouth to remove saliva every 15-20 minutes. As a teenager I was given a suction machine. My caregiver would place the straw in my mouth and turn this suction machine on. That had to happen frequently throughout the day. It really had an impact on my independency.
So, finally, together with a good friend of mine, we designed the very first iteration of the C9000. I went into a hardware store to buy a retractable antenna, and the first thing the sales person pulled off the shelf was a Cadillac antenna. I thought: “Perfect!”
We built a contraption that we mounted onto my chair. We connected a suction mouthpiece to it, and then I would hit a button on my lap, and it would extend the antenna. That contraption lasted for about a week before it broke. I showed it to my dad, a helicopter engineer. Together we started working on a second iteration. And that concept is the one I still use today.”
