By Dawn Pickering

This illustrated storybook was created from a research study that explored the well-being effects from disabled children using the Innowalk. The Innowalk (Made for Movement, 2023) is a robotic device that supports non ambulant people to stand upright and move, by passively cycling their legs. The Innowalk is reported to have health benefits that enhance quality of life (Lauruschkus et al 2022; Schmidt-Lucke, 2019). This storybook was aimed as an accessible research output for the participants to tell their stories about their well-being, which is known to fluctuate (Pickering 2023a and b). The original study was funded by the Association of Paediatric Chartered Physiotherapists, where observations, diaries and interview data generated these stories. This report can be found here.

This story book production was supported by the Baily Thomas Charitable Trust. The illustrator Alison Howard was commissioned to carry out this work.

A limited number of books were printed for the participants- if you would like a free copy please email: dawnpickering@live.co.uk. You could download it here https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/170633/.To support the children who could not read, an audio version of this book has been recorded.

Overall, this Well-being (WEBS) study showed that the Innowalk does have well-being effects as it is comfortable to use, creates an observable calmness, enables creativity to develop, facilitates engagement with people or activities, providing the children have enough energy to participate. The participants themselves did not describe the Innowalk experience as joyful, but it created much joy for parents and staff. 

For more information on this work please contact:

Dr Dawn M Pickering, Reader in Childhood Disability, Cardiff University’s School of Healthcare Sciences

Email: pickeringdm@cardiff.ac.uk

Twitter: @DawnMPickering

You may also be interested in these blogs about on my previous research on Accessible leisure activities for disabled children and young people and the ‘VOCAL’ study.

References:

Lauruschkus K et al 2022 Dynamic Standing exercise in a Novel Assistive Device Compared with Standard Care for Children with Cerebral Palsy Who Are Non-Ambulant, with Regard to Quality of Life and Cost-Effectiveness. Disabilities 2022, 2,73–85. https://doi.org/10.3390/disabilities2010006

Made for Movement, 2023 https://www.madeformovement.com/innowalk [Accessed 22.9.23]

Pickering DM, Gill P and Reagon C 2023aThe use of creative case studies to explore non-verbal and non-ambulant children and young people’s well-being. Physiotherapy online: https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0031-9406(23)00076-7

Pickering DM, Gill P & Reagon C 2023b A kaleidoscope of well-being to authentically represent the voices of children and young people with complex cerebral palsy: a case study series. Disability and Rehabilitation online https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/CWZNSAXMCIAQNQKREMJD/full?target=10.1080/09638288.2023.2194680

Schmidt-Lucke et al. 2019 Effect of assisted walking-movement in patients with genetic and acquired neuromuscular disorders with the motorised Innowalk device: an international case study meta-analysis PeerJ Vol. 7 Pages e7098