Assistive technology industry: A field for cooperation and networking.

Technology that assists persons with disabilities has been offered since long in the European countries. Many companies have been involved in the different support areas mainly for restoration and enhancement of hearing, vision, mobility and handling or assistance of activities of daily living. With the constitution of the common European market the set up and interaction of such companies in the market has gained attention on the background of the harmonisation process. The HEART study [1] presented a first look at the situation based on previous activities of e.g. COST 219 [2] and the CORE project [3]. HEART study line B [4] stated that "the European assistive technology market is fragmented because of geographical, cultural and political differences". It identifies problematic issues and market conditions of the early 1990s. With the development of the European Union and on the background of growing economies, of changing societies, of change of social legislation and the enormous progress of ICT technology subsequent investigations looked at the market from different perspectives [5-7]. Actually, market change has been observed by the studies but overall also many problems still have remained and not all potential is yet used. This paper makes an attempt to highlight the important aspects of the various study results and tries to come up with preliminary conclusions to be fed into the further discussion process for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]