New Smartphone App can help millions of wheelchair users

Finding accessible toilets is a daily challenge for around eight million wheelchair users in North America and Europe. WheelMate^™, a new smartphone application, aims to solve the issue by offering a quick and simple way to find accessible toilets.

People who use a wheelchair need to use the toilet about 4-6 times a day. Apart from the challenge of finding accessible toilets, some wheelchair users also have bladder control issues and may have to use a catheter to empty their bladder. To them, being able to find accessible and hygienic toilets is even more crucial.

To solve this issue, the medical device company Coloplast is introducing a free iPhone App – WheelMate^™. The app enables wheelchair users to find and rate handicap friendly toilets when they’re out and about – for instance in pubs, shops and restaurants.

 

Enabling an easier life

“Coloplast’s ambition is to make life easier for people with intimate healthcare needs. This includes developing the best medical devices, as well as offering innovative services that enable people to do more, says Martin Damm Jensen, Director, Coloplast.

A study confirms that almost 50 pct. of wheelchair users can’t go to the restaurants they’d like due to inaccessible toilets . But Simon Pinnell, a 46 year-old wheelchair user from the UK, is confident that a toilet app can make a big difference.

“If somebody suggests off the cuff ‘let's go here’, you can think: ‘Well, that's fine, we can go there. If I need the toilet, I can just search on the phone, and away we go.’"

Liz Bambury, clinical nurse specialist from the UK, also thinks the app has potential.

“I think it will enable and encourage people to go out more, and perhaps explore places where they haven’t been before,” she says.

 

Co-creation empowers community

“With WheelMate, we provide a platform that wheelchair users can help build by adding and rating accessible toilets. This way, WheelMate users can increase their own personal mobility and live more spontaneously, while helping others to do the same. That’s why WheelMate has potential to become more than a practical tool – we believe it can also empower the wheelchair user community as a whole,” Martin Damm Jensen says.

WheelMate is available for iPhone, and an Android version will also be developed. An estimated 65 million people across the world need a wheelchair  of which five million live in Europe and three million in the US.

Visit www.wheelmate.com

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[1] “The Social Implications of Increases in Wheelchair Use”, Sapey et al 2004
[2] World Health Organization 2008