Impact of Assistive Technology on lifestyle Pattern of Disabled People (A Sociological Study of Pokhara Lekhnath Metropolitan City, Kaski)

Abstract

The thesis entitled “Impact of Assistive Technology on the life style pattern of differently able people; A sociological study of Pokhara Lekhnath Metropolitan city, Kaski” is mainly focused on the barrier to use of assistive technologies for disabled people and to find out the changes of social and economical status of the disabled people after using assistive technologies. PWDs those are associated from different organization were selected in the study. It is focused mainly on the physical disabled people and their barrier to use of assistive technologies. Total numbers of respondents were 45. The data were collected both primary and secondary sources. The techniques like interview schedule, questionnaire, observation; key information etc has been applied to collect primary sources of data. For the secondary data collection, different types of Governments, NGOs and INGOs, books, journal, magazine, dissertation of formal students report has been consulted which was related to the subject matter and will be helpful for the research of this topic. Major respondents of this research were Spinal Cord Injury group and Cerebral Palsy.Almost half of the respondents were disabled dew to accident. Most of the respondents are migrated from different places to Pokhara valley because of the lack of accessible places and lack of health services. Unemployed respondents were higher therefore they had to depend on their family for living because they were not able to work or not get any chance to work like other people. People with disability often face different barriers like physical, attitudinal,social, organizational and technological. The impact of physical barriers usually are leaving people with disability isolated, create limitation in social participation, most of their choices have influence of their guardians as they are economically dependent upon their parents,could not acquire the higher education. Generally there are 7 types of assistive technological devices that responded are using. They are wheelchair, crutches, canes, orthotic device, prosthetic device, four wheels scooter and walker. People with disability often face technological barriers. Assistive technology would be most helpful for a person with a disability it can create unintentional barriers for some users. They are not affordable, unavailability, lack of information are the barrier of using technologies for people with disabilities and also lacks of funds, lack worker, lack of barrier free infrastructure, lack of knowledge about new technology etc are also the main reason or barriers to use AT. People’s attitude, physical barriers and lacks of punishment and reward system are the main reason for them to create problems to become socialized. After using AT respondents found they are more social then before. They become more independent. Respondents who are engaged in different kinds of work or occupation believe that technology is the key for them to become finically strong and they do not need to dependent on their families and friends.