1. Life and Work

2. Inventions
     Manuped    Walker  

3. References

4. External links

Aina Wifalk (21. März 1928 – 16. Juni 1983) was a Swedish social scientist and inventor of the modern walker.

Life and Work

Wifalk was born in Lund, Sweden on March 21, 1928. During her apprenticeship as a nurse she fell ill with Poliomyelitis at the age of 21 years in the year 1949. The illness forced Wifalk to stop her apprenticeship. From then on she campaigned for people with disabilities. In 1952 she founded a club for the physically disabled in her hometown Lund, in 1958 an association for patients with multiple sclerosis in the Västmanland region and 1968, the National Association for Accident Victims in Västerås.

After her aborted education she studied social sciences. From 1957 she worked as a consultant in the orthopedic clinic in Västerås. At the end of the 1960s she also advised the city of Västerås on the interests of handicapped people.^[1][2]

Aina Wifalk died on 16 June 1983 at the age of 55 in Västerås.

Inventions

Wifalk developed two aids for people with physical disabilities or disabilities: the manuped and the walker. She did not patent her inventions because she wanted to make them available to as many disabled people as possible. She received only royalties from the sale of her developments, which she bequeathed in the name of the Nordic Church Association on the Spanish Costa del Sol, which she had visited several times during his lifetime.^[3]

Manuped

Wifalk presented her first invention to the public in 1965. The "Manuped" development is a training device for people with physical disabilities or disabilities. With Manuped, sufferers can train their arms and legs as well as their coordination with each other. On the basis of the Manupeds various training devices for physically disabled people were developed in the following decades, which are used today in the health service as well as in special sport schools.^[4][5]

Walker

In the 1970s Wifalk was more and more restricted by her Poliomyelitis in her locomotion. Since the four-legged walkers available at that time did not meet their requirements for a comfortable walking aid, they began with their further development. She made the original frame more stable, added larger wheels and brakes, and a storage or seating surface and optimized the device for use both inside and outside buildings. In 1978 Wifalk presented the first draft of a walking frame. With the help of a state development fund, she found a Swedish company for the production of a prototype, shortly after, mass production of the walking frame began.

The walker was established worldwide in the following decades. In Germany alone, by the middle of 2016, it is estimated that as many as three million people use walking frames on a regular basis.^[6]

References

External links

• Aina Wifalk. Biography in the Swedish Museum for Inventors

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