Environmental Controls




The first environmental control system (EC system) was produced in the 1950s for survivors of the poliomyelitis epidemic. The early systems, developed at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, enabled access to typewriters and basic equipment and their use has spread to patients with other diseases and disabilities, such as multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease, cerebral palsy and learning difficulties, spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy, cerebra-vascular accident, rheumatoid arthritis, paraplegia and quadriparesis. The next 30 years brought some improvements in the design of EC systems and the range of devices that could be operated. These improvements paralleled the developments in household appliances and advances in technology, particularly within microelectronics, have since led to increasingly sophisticated EC systems that now have the potential for users to safely operate most mains powered electrical devices.


Typical devices that can be operated with an EC system include:

• door entry systems e.g. door intercoms, door release mechanisms, alarms etc.
• adapted loud speaking telephones (which may include amplification for hard of hearing people)
• curtain controllers
• heating and lighting
• home entertainment equipment e.g. televisions, associated terrestrial, satellite / digital and cable decoders, video
   recorders, DVD players, hi-fi stereos, CD players and mini disc players.
• internal intercoms
• pagers
• personal controllers
• powered profiling adjustable beds and riser / recliner chairs
• page turners
• plug-in device to normal sockets.

Many of the current EC systems incorporate an unobtrusive control unit, similar to those used with television sets, which activates peripheral devices by means of infrared or radio signals. The user, often with a switch, controls the unit and the devices to be controlled are chosen by the user in discussion with a medical assessor and a therapist. Larger display units are available for people with visual impairments and those with learning or perceptual difficulties who need to use icons rather than words to operate the system. Additionally, some EC systems provide auditory cues to supplement images and have the facility for some stored speech, so the unit can be used when answering the telephone or the door intercom.