Standards
Start with function, individualized assessment, and the actual mobility task rather than device appearance.
Review the standards frameworkFUNCTION-BEFORE-APPEARANCE STANDARDS
Evaluate Function Before Appearance
Non-standard mobility aids require individualized review. Assess actual risk using evidence and consider effective, less-restrictive alternatives.
Purpose
A method for individualized review
This site organizes generalized guidance for reviewers of unfamiliar mobility aids and transportation accommodations. It asks what function is claimed, what facts describe the setting, what actual risks are supported, and whether an effective less-restrictive alternative is available.
It does not establish binding law, categorical approval, or categorical exclusion. The personal case study and measured individual evidence are maintained on HandicapSkater.com.
Safety Review
Use current, setting-specific evidence rather than appearance, unfamiliarity, or assumption.
Review direct-threat analysisTransportation
Ask whether a proposed restriction or substitute preserves meaningful functional access.
Review transportation accommodationEvidence Quality
Keep source authority, provenance, sample size, missingness, limitations, and reproducibility visible.
Review evidence qualityLONG-LIFE MOBILITY DESIGN
Design Mobility Across Decades
If substantially longer human lifespans become common, mobility systems will need to consider cumulative burden across decades rather than assuming conventional walking is the only legitimate form of ambulation.
Rolling and alternative movement strategies deserve individualized evaluation as possible adaptations. Unfamiliar form does not establish actual risk, and a familiar substitute does not establish equivalent function.
Cumulative burden
Review repetition, impact, posture, transportation, recovery, and practical task demands across time—not only a brief encounter.
Function across life
Ask which strategy preserves meaningful mobility as capacity, environment, technology, and support needs change.
Alternative movement
Compare walking, rolling, assistive devices, transportation, and environmental redesign through individualized evidence.
This is a design and policy principle, not evidence that any particular mobility aid extends lifespan or prevents degeneration.
Evidence belongs in context
Review useful output, observed burden, body coupling, repeated observations, sources, units, missingness, sample size, limitations, and reproducibility together. Distinguish observation from diagnosis.