Boston Globe: "At a Worcester workshop, designers improvise with fabric, plastic, and metal to ease life for people with disabilities"

"Walkers and wheelchairs with missing parts or improvised upgrades crowd the floor of the workshop on the outskirts of Worcester.

At the facility, one of four Assistive Technology Centers run by the state, designers and technicians customize and adapt equipment, from shower chairs to iPads, to make them safer, more comfortable, or easier to use for people with developmental disabilities. The solutions can be as complicated as rebuilding a motorized chair, or as basic as laminating a cardboard box, as one of the adaptive equipment designers, Gabrielle Reis, discovered during weeks of trial and error as she attempted to build a tray for a wheelchair.

“Some of the hardest situations have some of the easiest solutions,” said Reis, 30, of Boston.

Massachusetts is among the few states with facilities dedicated to devising creative solutions to accommodate the unique needs of people with developmental disabilities, according to officials with the state’s Department of Developmental Services, or DDS. About $2 million is budgeted annually for the program, though it has other funding sources, including insurance payments and donations."

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/11/11/metro/mass-workshops-customize-equipment-disabilities/

Worcester is home to one of four “innovation centers” run by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where technicians can build and invent adaptive equipment to help people with disabilities. Technician Joey Watt works on a donated wheelchair, which will be rehabbed with parts from another wheelchair that allow the seat to be angled backward and forward. JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAF