Gaining perspective - reflections

Many years ago as a reporter for a daily newspaper, I took part in a challenge with local city council members to assess our city's suitability for the handicapped. We were asked to go about our daffy routine while physically limited in some way. Although it was an eye-opening experience, I always knew I could go back to being nondisabled.

For the past two months, I haven't been pretending. After an accident, I temporarily lost the use of my right foot and have had to negotiate life with a pair of crutches. The real experience has been far more painful and enlightening than the exercise.

A day after my accident, I tried to walk into a fast-food restaurant to order a sandwich, a task I had completed thousands of times before. This time, it took me 10 minutes just to struggle my way along the 100 feet from the front door to the food counter. I experienced daily life from an entirely new perspective.

Since that first day, I have visited several retail stores and been disappointed to find few that are equipped for the physically challenged; fewer still are staffed by understanding people who know how to help.

While shopping, I have wondered why the aisles couldn't have been designed wider; why the displays had to placed haphazardly through the store and so close together; why the food counter couldn't have been lowered by several inches; why there were no chairs between the counter and the heavy front door that didn't open automatically; and why the store had been designed with so many steps rather than on one level with an outside entry ramp.

It's the little things that often get overlooked, but make all the difference.

Those of us who haven't already done so should design products and environments with the physically challenged in mind--especially those of us in this industry who sell spas. Our efforts to market spas as a therapeutic aid should be accompanied by a retail atmosphere that is friendly to physically challenged people. Stores equipped to handle special customers, such as the physically challenged and the elderly, would certainly draw more people seeking hot water therapy.

But it all has to begin with awareness.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Hanley-Wood, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group