Grant: Idea to Innovation

A large portion of the general population has significant trouble with stairs. This includes children, mothers with strollers, and especially the elderly and those with a disability. The ubiquitous use of stairs in single family homes in Canada and elsewhere render home accessibility as a major issue for many people in terms of safety, health, quality of life, community participation, and economy - both personal and societal. Marketplace solutions for home accessibility have several drawbacks, most notable amongst others being usability (e.g. ease of entry and travel time) and reliability (e.g. use during a power failure). We therefore began a research program with the overall goal of developing a new home access solution to address these drawbacks. This work led to a prototype of a novel integrated staircase-lift that greatly improves the time taken for an occupant to rise to another level, as well as being operable without power. Furthermore, the design affords an inclusive solution by offering a staircase or lift in the same access location and footprint; this is thought to potentially encourage stair use whenever possible (e.g. by seniors for exercise) as well as offering the safety and convenience of a lift when necessary (e.g. when the person is encumbered or for a wheelchair user). The objective in this proposal is to build a fully functioning version of our staircase-lift so that we can completely evaluate it, in comparison to conventional state-of-the-art home access systems on the market, prior to further commercial development. In particular, we need to document the performance, usability, and user acceptance of the novel staircase-lift design, including its hypothesized benefits of increased efficiencies in transport speed and powerless operation capability, in order to properly assess its market potential. To do this we propose to research several improvements around the use, safety, and power of the staircase-lift. These component improvements will then be integrated into an aesthetically appropriate second generation prototype for evaluation by users in comparison to other lift products. The results of this evaluation will inform the market potential of the invention and establish the basis for the next phase of commercial development.