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or they may drink less fluid to reduce the frequency of urination. If they become unable
to walk or wheel themselves to the commode and help is not routinely available in the
home when needed, a move to a more enabling environment ( e.g. , assisted living) may
be necessary. Moreover, impaired mobility often results in decreased opportunities to
socialize, which leads to social isolation, anxiety, and depression [13]. This is why we
focused our attention in mobility and their related activities as crucial issue to guarantee
autonomy in elderly and disabled people.
In order to quantify residual autonomy and level of disability of individuals, it is
commonly accepted to talk in terms of Functional Disability and Functional Status. In
fact, Functional Status is usually conceptualized as the ability to perform self-care, self-
maintenance and physical activities . Behind that, physical, neurological, and mental
functions, and conditions and diseases affecting such functions are to be taken into
account as well.
Subjects affected by chronic diseases or outcomes of acute events, (stroke, arthritis,
hypertension, cancer, degenerative bone/joint disease, coronary artery disease) repre-
sent a heterogeneous category of individuals. Each patient may be affected by at least
one of these symptoms: ambulatory impairment, memory loss, staggering gait, ataxia,
visuo-spatial dysfunction, aphasia, etc. Moreover, each and every one of these features
can be often combined differently and with different severity in individual patients, im-
pairing their self-dependency and worsening their quality of life. Global declines and
alterations in motor coordination, spatial perception, visual and auditory acuity, gait,
muscle and bone strength, mobility, and sensory perceptions of environmental stim-
uli (heat, cold) with increasing age are well documented, as are increases in chronic
diseases and their disabling sequels [7].
The simultaneous presence of cognitive and mobility impairments has a multiplica-
tive effect, worsening global function more than expected by the sum of the single
conditions.
Cognition and mobility heavily affect the capacity of daily planning. For an activity
to be effective implies that the person is capable of performing it when he/she wants to
or when it is necessary: the possibility of successfully performing daily life connected
activities implies the chance of remaining or not in the community.
As a consequence, the capacity of performing ADLs becomes an important indicator
of self-dependency or disability, is used as a comprehensive measure in disabled people,
and can be chosen as a marker of Functional Status.
It is then mandatory to consider age-related Functional Status impairment among
senior citizens when developing devices to improve disability, and to judge their effec-
tiveness in maintaining and improving self-dependency in terms of ADLs.
According to these premises is quite manifest that independent mobility is critical
to individuals of any age. While the needs of many individuals with mobility restric-
tions can be satisfied with standard wheelchairs or power wheelchairs and with standard
walkers, some citizens with disabilities find it difficult or impossible to operate a stan-
dard aid for mobility. This population includes, but is not limited to, individuals with
low vision, visual field neglect, tremors, or cognitive deficits. In these cases, a caregiver
is required to grant mobility. In order to minimize caregiver support requirements for
 
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