By Kerry McAthey
Radio Anchor/Reporter 630CHED

Navigating Edmonton in a wheelchair takes a lot of force, according to the Click N’ Push application

Navigating Edmonton in a wheelchair takes a lot of force, according to the Click N’ Push application

The winner of this year’s HealthHack Smart Cities Challenge is aiming to make Edmonton more accessible to those who use wheelchairs.

Professor at the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Alberta Martin Ferguson-Pell and his team have developed Click N’ Push an app that shows just how difficult it can be to get around the city in a wheelchair.

“It turned out to be incredibly difficult,” Ferguson-Pell said. “This is a very strong person, a member of our team. He went out and did one block on Whyte Avenue, and that’s all he could do. And there were times when he had to get out of the wheelchair he’s an able-bodied person and actually shift the wheelchair around obstacles in order to do it.”

The app will use force sensors to measure the effort required to navigate different parts of the city in a wheelchair. The data is then placed on a map, ranking the level of difficulty between zero and 10. The findings during the testing period of the app show that it’s harder than it may seem, and the goal is to make Edmonton a more accessible city going forward.

“So what we can now do is collect information that represents them in a much more quantitative way,” Ferguson-Pell explained. “It puts it onto a map that for example, city planners can look at.

“At the end of the day what we’d like to think is that the city can use this as a planning tool for the future. A strategic planning tool.”

The HealthHack 2018 Challenge asked for submissions that would improve health mental, physical, social and economic.

Original at https://globalnews.ca/news/4175569/healthhack-2018-edmonton-winner-accessibility/