Closing the generation gap: teens don thinking caps to help aging population

Closing the generation gap: teens don thinking caps to help aging population
By: Michelle McQuigge, The Canadian Press

22/07/2010 12:42 PM


TORONTO - Who says you have to move forward to make progress? Nicholas Schiefer has made a case for putting on the brakes instead.

When the 16-year-old high school student from Pickering, Ont., signed up to take part in Shad Valley, a month-long, nationwide enrichment program for high school students, he little imagined he would be facing the task of developing a product or service designed to help the country’s rapidly aging population.

The issue has dogged governments, corporations and policy-makers for longer than most Shad participants have been alive, but Schiefer and 10 of his fellow participants were tasked with presenting a fully developed solution — complete with working prototype and 30-page business plan — in just 19 days.

Several hours spent cloistered in a room on the University of British Columbia campus yielded hundreds of suggestions, but the penny didn’t drop for the enterprising teens until they hit upon the unlikely combination of memory aids and wheelchair mechanics.

“One of our group members used to volunteer in a hospital, and she used to hear the nurses constantly reminding patients to lock their wheelchairs before they stood up,” Schiefer said in a telephone interview. “We decided to develop a wheelchair braking system that would make it easier for them to remember this.”

The final product, the result of hours of work and many sleepless nights, is an armrest extension attached to a metal rod. When the occupant compresses the extension, the rod comes down and locks the wheels in place, allowing seniors to lean on the device for support without fear of falling.

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other ideas the teens have come up with include a device that helps keeps pills organized and ComfortBright slippers that feature glow-in-the-dark patches designed to help seniors locate their shoes easily