wheelchair

     

A wheelchair (also calle chair-carriage) is a wheeled mobility device in which the user sits. The device is propelled either manually (by turning the wheels by the hand) or via various automated systems. Wheelchairs are used by people for whom walking is difficult or impossible due to illness (mental or physical), injury, or disability. People with both sitting and walking disability often need to use a wheelbench. The earliest record of the wheelchair in England dates from the 1670s [Oxford English Dictionary, (2nd Ed.), 1989, Vol. XX., p. 203.], and in continental Europe this technology dates back to the German Renaissance.

Trivia about wheelchair

  • "Share a Smile" Becky, Barbie's first friend with a disability, comes complete with a pink one of these vehicles
  • Events for athletes confined to these include a shot put & 100-, 200- & 400-meter races
  • Improved care in WWII meant more soldiers badly hurt but not dead; that prompted George Klein to motorize this
  • The WNBA is the Women's National Basketball Association; the NWBA is the National this Basketball Assoc.