Improving the Accessibility of Fitness and Recreation Facilities for Persons with Disabilities is a four-year study that is part of Project RecTech, a Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). Dr. James Rimmer is the principal investigator of Project RecTech, and Dr. Barth Riley is the principal investigator of the Improving Accessibility study. The aim of the study is to improve the accessibility of fitness and recreation facilities in order to increase physical activity participation among persons with disabilities.

In October of this year, Dr. Riley along with co-investigator Dr. William Schiller travelled to Kansas and Missouri to conduct a pilot test of the Improving Accessibility study. Ray Petty from the Great Plains IT Center in Kansas recruited participants and identified facilities to serve as test sites. A total of eight participants with physical disabilities assessed five facilities (three fitness centers, two swimming pools). Participants completed the consumer version of the AIMFREE (Accessibility Instruments Measuring Fitness and Recreation Environments) instrument and used a cell phone camera to record areas of the facility that were found to be inaccessible. Study investigators were particularly interested in assessing the feasibility of using the cell phone camera to record images, and later upload them to a Web site where they can be viewed in "real time." Under normal study conditions, the cell phone camera will allow a participant in one area of the country to record images that can be reviewed by a researcher located in Chicago. If the researcher needs additional images of the facility, the investigator can easily contact the participant via the cell phone. So far, the cell phone camera proves to be an effective tool for recording images as well as communicating with project staff, and will be used in future data collection.

For more information on Rectech, go to http://www.rectech.org/.