Disability Awareness Month: Access and awareness of assistive technology

Assistive technology enables people to live healthy, productive, independent, and dignified lives, and to participate in education, the labor market and civic life. Assistive technology reduces the need for formal health and support services, long-term care and the work of caregivers. Without assistive technology, people are often excluded, isolated, and locked into poverty, thereby increasing the impact of disease and disability on a person, their family, and society.

Key facts assistive technology is an umbrella term covering the systems and services related to the delivery of assistive products and services. Assistive products maintain or improve an individual’s functioning and independence, thereby promoting their well-being. Hearing aids, wheelchairs, communication aids, spectacles, prostheses, pill organizers and memory aids are all examples of assistive products.

Globally, more than 1 billion people need 1 or more assistive products. With an aging global population and a rise in noncommunicable diseases, more than 2 billion people will need at least 1 assistive product by 2030, with many older people needing 2 or more. Today, only 1 in 10 people in need have access to assistive products.

 The guest presenters can be contacted by visiting the WILL Center.