Motor

Paraplegia/ Tetraplegia

Tetraplegia and paraplegia result from a traumatic or vascular injury to the spinal cord.
The impairment can be high (tetraplegia) or low (paraplegia), and it can be complete or incomplete.

  • Nature of disability : Both congenital and acquired possible
  • Age group concerned : Accidents are the main cause, and spinal cord injuries most often affect young people (aged 15-35) and tend to be male.
  • Number of people affected : between 25 and 30,000 people suffer from with paraplegia or tetraplegia.

Symptoms

Spinal cord injuries resulting in paralysis of the lower limbs (Paraplegia) or all four limbs (Tetraplegia).

Examples of obstacles encountered during navigation

  • Websites, web browsers and authoring tools that do not provide full keyboard support.
  • Insufficient time to respond or complete tasks, such as filling in online forms.
  • Controls, including links with text images, that do not have equivalent text alternatives.
  • Missing visual and non-visual orientation cues, page structure and other navigational aids.
  • Inconsistent, unpredictable and overly complicated navigation mechanisms and page functions.
  • Clickable areas too small.

Solutions for accessibility

To use the Web, people with physical disabilities often use specialised hardware and software such as:

  • Ergonomic or specially designed keyboard or mouse.
  • Head pointer, mouth stick and other aids to help with typing.
  • On-screen keyboard with trackball, joysticks or other pointing devices.
  • Switches operated by foot, shoulder, sip and puff or other movements.
  • Voice recognition, eye tracking and other approaches to hands-free interaction.
  • They may need more time to type, click or perform other interactions, and they may type single keystrokes in sequence rather than typing simultaneous keystrokes (‘chords’) to activate commands.
  • People with physical disabilities may find it difficult to click on small areas and are more likely to make mistakes when typing and clicking. Providing large clickable areas, sufficient time to complete tasks and error correction options for forms are important design aspects.
  • Another important aspect is the display of the current focus and the ability to switch from one block to another easily.
  • The content is compatible with current and future user tools.
  • Operating system functions or software tools that recognise and compensate for involuntary movements such as tremors and spasms.

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