A remarkable initiative from Hamburg: artists and students from the Freie Schule für Gestaltung Hamburg (Free School of Design Hamburg) creatively beautified walkers, and afterwards people of all ages walked through HafenCity with these colourful walkers!
✳️Our board member Christa Möller-Metzger used a walker for the first time. Her lesson after the parade: there is no suspension, so you feel every little bump and uneven surface. And when it’s windy, the walking aids tend to roll off on their own.
✳️In any case, flower-decorated midsummer night walkers and glitter walkers or pink walkers decorated with pearls ensure that even at 80+, you don’t become invisible!
After the parade, there was an interesting information session. The inclusion advisor for Deutsche Bahn explained how people with disabilities are supported: you can book the service in advance and be accompanied on the train.
Or you can get advice via an app and AI, e.g. if announcements are incomprehensible or the signage for the replacement bus is not clear enough.
A nursing scientist reported on his doctoral thesis on the usability of rollators: he found that ‘one size fits all’ does not work and is also not sustainable. For example, if the handles are too low, it causes a hunched back, and a 5 kg load is not really much when shopping! When buying a rollator, you can usually choose between grey and black, and the design has changed little since the rollator was invented by a Swedish woman in the 1970s.
In Denmark, however, there are rollators whose design was inspired by nature: fast animals such as eagles or sharks, for example.
The Danish Walker, decorated with flowers
Christa spoke about ageism and images of old age: negative images are paralysing and make people ill, while positive ones inspire! Age does not mean stagnation, and you can still be cool even with a rollator!
More intensive cooperation between scientific research on ageing and start-ups and design would be beneficial. Scandinavia is already further ahead in this respect, for example in Helsinki with Metropolia, which works closely with start-ups. Do you know of any other examples? Feel free to write to us!
