JOHOR BAHRU, 22 October 2013 - An innovative wheelchair complete with an automatic control was produced by a group of researchers from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) that will make the job of caring of a person in a wheelchair much easier, thus granting more freedom to the patient to move.

According to lead researcher Dr. Zuraida Zainun from USM’s School of Health Sciences who innovated the wheelchair, said that it enables stroke patients in particular to move the wheelchair around using only four buttons on hand.

She said that patients or caregivers do not have to manually push the wheelchair but use button controls to allow movements in four directions, including forward, back, left and right movement.

“The idea is translated into this form of innovation after considering statistics that show that an estimated 40,000 new cases of strokes occur each year in this country. Most patients complain of difficulties, especially those involving mobility.

“With the Wheelsaver, patients can move around and with minimal effort. This gadget is also easy to install and portable,” she said.

She added that the controller can also be installed on existing wheelchairs and have the potential to be commercialised with an estimated cost as low as RM500 as compared to RM5,000 of similar products in the market.

She added that the device could also be used by the pilgrims in wheelchairs so as to facilitate their pilgrimage in Mecca.

Wheelsaver USM is one of five products that competed in the BioMalaysia and Asia-Pacific Bioeconomy 2013 that was held at the PERSADA Convention Centre from 21 to 23 October.

Besides Wheelsaver, the other four innovations are high fibre NutriMush Flour, a pumpkin-based nutritional drink (PumpCoola), concrete products from palm ash waste, and a specific platform to determine the safety of herbal medicines (A Novel Drug-Drug and Drug-herb Interaction Prediction Platform). - Translation: Yong Check Yoon/Photos: Marziana Mohamed Alias