In recent years enormous progress has been achieved in the design and creation of barrier free environments in both commercial buildings and public housing. For individuals with restrictedmobility, hearing or vision, the physical environment can either facilitate or reduce their independence. But in a barrier free surrounding, a person with a disability is allowed to live more independently within their home and enjoy greater access to public buildings and even participate in physical activities. Rooms with barrier free designs, especially kitchens, not only assist those with disabilities, but aid even the elderly and other individuals whose physical attributes restrict them from experiencing easy access to kitchens and other living quarters.

Fortunately, there is a vast number of high-tech and cutting edge companies like Home Depot, Lowes, Inc., Barrier-Free Environments and the National Association of Home Builders, to name just a few, involved nationwide in the design and manufacture of barrier free kitchens and other facilities for the disabled. And while every space in a barrier free home is vitally important to the disabled homeowner or resident, the focus here will be on barrier free kitchens and what is required in their design and construction before comtemplating contracting or purchasing a new or old kitchen.

First off, we know that the average kitchen, no matter how well designed, has numerous impediments that make it difficult for use by anyone with a physical disability. Creatiing a kitchen barrier free requires specific planning and design features that are different from the average remodeling or retrofitting project. When designing barrier free kitchens, four vital issues need to be considered:

1. Safety: which includes non-slip floor surfaces, lighting, and non-protruding, rounded-off corner surfaces;

2. Mobility: is there sufficient space to manoeuvre a stroller or wheelchair?

3. Accessibility: can the kitchen be easily accessed from one or more adjoining rooms and/or hallways, or are there steps or other barriers to impede access; and

4. Function: are the appliances, counter tops, cabinets, sinks and fixture facilities able to be used by a person with a disability?

Generally speaking, wheelchair access requires wider door openings — 36 inches minimum, with 42 inches to 48 inches preferred — as well as greater clearance between all cabinets. Grab bars may also be necessary for additional support, and these should be near appliances and primary work areas. Of course, grab bar designs need to be discussed with the contractor before work can begin, so that support blocking can be added in the walls and other partitions.The primary access consideration is that hallways and doorways need to be at least 1200mm wide to allow sufficient space to enter the kitchen.

Light fixtures and power switches should be located where a wheelchair user can reach them, at least 1m from the floor. Consideration should be given to using rocker or touch switches which are easier to turn on and off. The kitchen should also have benches (with rounded off corners) which are around 850mm from the floor. Providing a continuous bench between preparation area, microwave, stove and other appliances will assist with the safe handling of hot food.

Cabinet access can be established by using cabinets 2 inches lower than standard height. The toe-kick space under cabinets also needs to be higher — 6 inches instead of the standard 4 — to allow the wheelchair to positioned closer to both cabinets and countertops. Sink cabinets and cooktop areas should be designed so a wheelchair can roll all the way under them. This is achieved by using doors that open out and then slide back into grooves on the sides of thecabinet, such as those on an entertainment center; or the doors of cabinets can be left off to provide easy, continual access. Drapes or vertical blinds can be used here instead of doors to cover the cabinet openings.

Appliances and their locatoin also are important to a barrier free kitchen. Most experts suggest that appliances be electrical to eliminate having to reach over an open flame and to avoid thedanger of carbon monoxide poisoning. For anyone with an impaired sense of smell, electric appliances will eliminate the danger of being unable to detect a gas leak. Appliances with controls positioned in the front are best for simple access. For persons with impaired vision, there are appliances that come with Braille lettering as well as knobs and push-button controls provided in various sizes and dimensions to assist those who experience difficulty usingconventional ones.

Ovens with doors hinged on one side, lower table-top stoves and side-by-side refrigerators with freezers are far more accessable to wheelchair users especially when it is necessary to reach the lower shelves in these appliances. Another innovative device that can be installed to facilitate accessing shelves in cabinets and appliances, are carousel shelves and shelves mounted on smooth rollers which make it easier to reach objects stored on the back part of the shelf. Such carousel shelves are also handy to use inside the refrigerator for storing small items.

It is best to remember that the issue of safety should first be addressed when designing a barrier free kitchen. And such safety issues should specifically relate to or answer the individual needs and requirements of the disabled person in question. Therefore, an experienced contractor or designer will viisit the disabled person at his current dwelling to learn firsthand what unique design features should be installed to meet these specific needs and requirements.

When complete accessibility is established, mobility is no longer a problem for the disabled person who must use a wheelchair or stroller. Electrical and gas-free designed appliances, non-slip and adhesive floors, easy to reach fixtures and cabinets, and wide enough entrances and surface spaces are of course major concerns for a barrier free kitchen. And while appliances, counter tops, cabinets, floors, and sink and fixture facilities are all crucial to designing and constructing a barrier free kitchen, those with disabilities (and their families) first need to know where to go whom to contact before design and/or remodeling concerns and costs become a consideration.

A good place to start is with the family doctor or an occupational therapist. Occupational therapists, along with real estate contractors and designers can be found under both local and State listings in the phone book or by contacting one or more of the many sources listed at the conclusion of this article. On the Internet a search for “barrier free kitchens” via any of the major search engines will provide an almost inexhausible list of local and regional companies actively involved in the business of designing and manufacturing barrier free rooms and kitchens.

For now and more than ever across the United States and Canada, real estate planners and contractors, architects, appliance manufacturers, plumbers, carpenters, cabinet makers and others in the construction industry are working and innovating at high speed to design, construct and retrofit better barrier free rooms and other access facilities for both public housing and commerical real estate.

Ever since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 and the notable aging of the United States population an awareness for facilities that are accessible to people with disabilities has become more than just a social or political concern. Barrier free environments benefit everyone, and their increase in construction has been an economic boon to thousands of communities across the nation.

Specifically, the design of barrier free kitchens in homes for the disabled and the elderly has provided both dignity and livelihood to these citizens, and moreover has provided a reciprocal windfall in both jobs and improved economies for local housing commuities and the construction industry alike. No longer does the disabled or elderly person have to endure limited access and restricted mobility at home or in public. Today, the answer to greater access and almost unlimited mobility is only a phone call or email away!

The tobacco in cigarettes hosts a bacterial bonanza — literally hundreds of different germs, including those responsible for many human illnesses, a new study finds.

“Nearly every paper that you pick up discussing the health effects of cigarettes starts out with something to the effect that smokers and people exposed to secondhand smoke experience high rates of respiratory infections,” notes Amy Sapkota of the University of Maryland, College Park. The presumption has been that smoking renders people vulnerable to disease by impairing lung function or immunity. And it may well do both.

“But nobody talks about cigarettes as a source of those infections,” she says. Her new data now suggest that’s distinctly possible.

If these germs are alive, something she has not yet confirmed, just handling cigarettes or putting an unlit one to the mouth could be enough to cause an infection.

The idea that tobacco might contain viable germs isn’t just idle conjecture. Several research teams have isolated bacteria from tobacco that they could grow out in petri dishes. Those earlier investigations tended to hunt for — and, when found, attempted to grow — only one or two species of interest, Sapkota says.

What’s novel in her study: She and her colleagues probed for genetic material from any and every bacterium in a cigarette’s tobacco. Under sterile conditions, the researchers opened up cigarettes and then performed a series of tests on the leafy bits. For instance, they isolated all of the ribosomal material and then homed in on its long, species-specific stretches known as 16S regions. These genetic segments were then compared to 16S patches characteristic of known bacterial species.

Sapkota’s team had 16S probes for close to 800 different bacteria and found matches to many hundreds in the four brands of cigarettes screened: Marlboro Red, Camel, Kool Filter Kings and Lucky Strike Original Red. These cigarettes are “among the most commonly smoked brands in Westernized countries and represent three major tobacco companies,” Sapkota notes. All were purchased in Lyon, France, where she was completing her postdoctoral studies.

Among the large number of germs whose DNA laced these cigarettes were: Campylobacter, which can cause food poisoning and Guillain-Barre Syndrome; Clostridium, which causes food poisoning and pneumonias; Corynebacterium, also associated with pneumonias and other diseases; E. coli; Klebsiella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, all of which are associated not only with pneumonia but also with urinary tract infections; and a number of Staphylococcus species that underlie the most common and serious hospital-associated infections.

Sapkota’s team lists many of these — including the most prevalent bacteria in the tobacco they studied — in a paper published early, online in Environmental Health Perspectives.

Some people have criticized the idea of infectious cigarettes, arguing that as tobacco burns, it would kill any germs present. But Sapkota is not so sure that’s true. The tobacco farthest from the burning tip might be a balmy temperature, from a bacterial point of view. And here’s “a really wild idea,” she says: What if the smoke particles traveling through the still-unburned part of a cigarette pick up some germs and then ferry them deeply into the lung, where they’re unlikely to be cleared? Wouldn’t that be the prescription for disease?

Of course, there’s also plenty of chances for a smoker to become exposed prior to lighting up. And, of course, the potential for highest oral exposure would come from chewing tobacco — and nasal exposures from snuff.

Sapkota, an environmental health scientist, plans to follow up her preliminary data to see which types of tobacco are most likely to host viable germs, and whether those bacteria are transported into the body, either during smoking or by the insertion of unburned tobacco products (including chewing tobacco) into the mouth.

Several thousand potentially toxic chemicals have been isolated from cigarettes. Sapkota says that it’s not hard to imagine that the number of germs hosted by tobacco products could rival that of the carcinogens and other poisons residing in or produced by burning tobacco.

How so, when she’s only found genetic material indicting hundreds of germs? Owing to the bacterial probes available when Sapkota began her tobacco work, she was only able to screen for 700-odd species. But newer probes on the market can now screen for the bacterial 16S genetic material of 5,000 or more germs. And if she used such huge batteries of probes now, she said she fully expects she could turn up at least 1,000 hitchhiking bacterial species in tobacco products.

Image: Flickr/alphadesigner

See Also:

• The Cigarette of the Future: All the Cancer, None of the Nicotine
• Philip Morris Tries to Engineer the Cancer Out of Tobacco
• Toxic Soup: Plastics Could Be Leaching Chemicals Into Ocean
• Anti-Smoking Drug Succeeds When Antidepressants Fail
• Darker Skin Linked to Nicotine Dependence
• The Inevitable USB Powered Cigarette

Only two bird watchers in history have ever seen more than 8,000 of the approximately 9,600 species of birds found on our planet. Phoebe Snetsinger, of Missouri, was one of the two. Her father, Leo Burnett, was the ad exec who helped bring the Jolly Green Giant, the Marlboro Man, Toucan Sam, Charlie the Tuna, Morris the Cat, the Pillsbury Doughboy and Tony the Tiger into our lives. Why is that important when discussing a birder? Easy: money! Only 900 species are found in the US and Canada, so a serious birder needs to have enough dough to travel around the world.

To give you some perspective on just what an fantastic accomplishment seeing 8,000 birds is, consider this:

Only 250 or so people have ever hit the 5,000 mark. Only 100 people have made it to 6,000 and only 12 or so have seen more than 7,000. In addition to money, serious birding requires time and strict adherence to the rules. There are birders who’ve been blacklisted for cheating and others that have fought over what actually constitutes a sighting (some birders say if you “hear” a bird, you’ve seen it.)

Phoebe Snetsinger (with a name like that, you’re a born birder, eh?) only became a serious bird watcher after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six months to live. It’s quite possible that counting, or listing as it’s sometimes called, actually helped her beat that diagnosis; she lived not just another year, but another 17 years! And she would have lived longer, no doubt, were birding not such a dangerous hobby. Yes, on top of the financial independence and time, one also needs a certain amount of courage to trek into the wild, deep into jungles and forests of enormous size.

In 1999, on a birding trip to Madagascar, as she prepared to see her 8,500th bird, Snetsinger was killed in a freak car accident in the middle of nowhere. So, in the end, cancer didn’t do her in, but her obsessive hobby did.

Not that many moons ago, if you asked an ornithologist how many species of birds there were, s/he would have said about 6,000. Five years from now, they expect there will be more like 18,000. It’s not that birds are evolving, it’s more that we’re changing our definitions of what we call a species. Who knows how many of those 18,000 Snetsinger could have crossed off her list.

Any serious birders out there? How many have you counted? What’s your best birding story?

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