KU helps Kansans with disabilities purchase needed equipment

Curtis Dougherty, Parsons, received a loan for a van with a lift and driver modifications.

A loan cooperative developed by researchers at KU's Life Span Institute is making life easier for scores of Kansans with disabilities.

The Kansas Assistive Technology Cooperative is a federal-state-private partnership that was the brainchild of LSI associate scientist Sara Sack and senior scientist Charles Spellman.

As it enters its third year, KATCO has loaned more than $400,000 to 70 Kansans in 18 counties for vehicle and home modifications, computers and other technology.

Assistive technology such as motorized scooters or communication devices can be expensive, and the Kansans who need them may have high medical bills, live on fixed incomes or be unable to get conventional bank loans to purchase these unconventional items. Neither Medicare nor Medicaid pays for major equipment purchases such as modified vehicles or computers that would allow Kansans with disabilities to live and work independently or simply communicate or move about.

When the U.S. Department of Education issued grants to develop state alternative financing programs, Sack and Kansans with disabilities from across the state developed one of the first in the country.

"What we heard most often from Kansans with disabilities was the lack of available funding," Sack said. "An individual could get a job if they had a van with a lift for their wheelchair to get to the office, but they couldn't borrow money until they already had the job. It was a Catch-22."

Rick Linnaberry, a Wichita machinist who designs aircraft parts, received a loan for a standing frame that allows him to work.

Rick Linnaberry, a Wichita machinist who designs aircraft parts, is one of these individuals.

"More people with disabilities could have productive lives with programs like KATCO," he said.

Linnaberry is typical of middle-income people who have credit problems after accidents or illness.

"I wasn't poor enough to qualify for some kinds of assistance, and not rich enough to afford the assistive technology I needed to go back to work."

Rick applied for a KATCO loan to buy a $5,000 standing frame that allows him to work standing up. The frame allows him to move around his workshop, strengthens his leg muscles and reduces the incidence of painful pressure ulcers common to people with paralysis.

Now Rick works 50 to 60 hours a week at a full-time job and his own home business.

The project is part of the KU Life Span Institute at Parsons, one of the 12 centers and more than 140 projects of the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies at KU.

For more information, contact E. Basil Kessler at 625 Merchant St., Suite 210, Emporia, KS 66801; (866) 465-2826; or katcodir@sbcglobal.net. More information is available online at http://www.katco.net/.

Most of the KATCO program's board of directors and loan review committee are Kansans with disabilities. The state provided the original funds to match the federal dollars that fund the program. The Parsons Credit Union, Mid America Credit Union in Wichita and Alliance Bank in Topeka have helped establish the nontraditional assistive technology cooperative.

More recently, KU has joined with Kansas State University, Southeast Kansas Independent Living, Kansas Vocational Rehabilitation and others to form the Kansas AgrAbility Project to bring assistive technology and rehabilitation to the more than 350 Kansas farmers and farm workers who are injured in agriculture-related accidents each year.