(1) To compensate for lost functions. For example, after the amputee is fitted with a prosthesis, he can walk, ride a bicycle and bear heavy labor like a sound person.
(2) Compensation for diminished function. Such as wearing a hearing aid can make the residual hearing of deaf patients to hear the outside world again.
(3) Restore and improve function. For example, foot drop patients can effectively improve their gait by using foot orthoses, and hemiplegic patients can recover their walking function through the training of parallel bars, walking aids and other rehabilitation devices.
Aids for the disabled have the following roles:
(1) rely on self-care life. Aids involve living, washing, eating, moving, toileting, housework, communication and other aspects of life, is to give full play to the potential of the dysfunctional, an important tool to assist self-care life.
(2) Tools for comprehensive rehabilitation. Auxiliary aids involve medical rehabilitation, educational rehabilitation, vocational rehabilitation and social rehabilitation in various fields, and are indispensable tools for rehabilitation.
(3) A bridge back to the society, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) in May 2001 emphasizes that personal and environmental factors have a close relationship with the occurrence and development of disability, as well as with the restoration and reconstruction of functioning, and that the environmental factors play an important role in the rehabilitation of people with disabilities and their participation in the life of the society. If society provides paraplegics with wheelchairs, they can go out of their homes; when they go out of their homes to face a barrier-free environment with ramps for traveling and lifting devices for ascending and descending staircases, they can realize the desire to participate in the social life normally, so the assistive devices are the channels and bridges to build a barrier-free environment.
There are three ways to categorize the assistive devices for the disabled:
One is to categorize them according to the national standards. The national standard "Classification and Terminology of Assistive Devices for the Disabled" GB/T 16432-2004 / ISO 9999:2002 (equivalent to the international standard) categorizes the assistive devices for the disabled into 11 main categories, 135 sub-categories and 741 sub-categories. 11 main categories are:
1. Personal medical aids
2.2. Skills training aids
3. Orthopedic and prosthetic devices
4. Self-care and protective aids
5. Personal mobility aids
6. Domestic aids
7. Furniture and its fittings for use in the home and in other places
8. Communication, information and signal aids
9. Products and articles 11.9. Products and articles management aids
10. Aids and equipment, tools and machines for environmental improvement
11. Leisure and recreation aids
Secondly, according to the group of people who use them are categorized as follows: aids for the physically handicapped, aids for the hearing handicapped, aids for the speech handicapped, aids for the sight handicapped, aids for the mentally handicapped, and aids for the intellectually handicapped.
Third, according to the use of classification: mobility aids, living aids, information aids, training aids, educational aids, employment aids, entertainment aids.