Alabama Code Title 21. Handicapped Persons § 21-4-2 SECTION 21-4-2 DEFINITIONS

For the purposes of this article the following terms shall have the meanings as set forth in this section:

(1) NONAMBULATORY DISABILITIES. Impairments that, regardless of cause or manifestation, for all practical purposes, confine individuals to wheelchairs.

(2) SEMIAMBULATORY DISABILITIES. Impairments that cause individuals to walk with difficulty or insecurity. Individuals using braces or crutches, amputees, arthritics, those with neuromuscular disorders, and those with pulmonary and cardiac ills may be semiambulatory.

(3) SIGHT DISABILITIES. Total blindness or impairments affecting sight to the extent that the individual functioning in public areas is insecure or exposed to danger.

(4) HEARING DISABILITIES. Deafness or hearing handicaps that might make an individual insecure in public areas because he is unable to communicate or hear warning signals.

(5) DISABILITIES OF INCOORDINATION. Faulty coordination or palsy from brain, spinal, or peripheral nerve injury.

(6) AGING. Those manifestations of the aging processes that significantly reduce mobility, flexibility, coordination, and perceptiveness but are not accounted for in the aforementioned categories.

(7) STANDARD. When this term appears in small letters it is descriptive and shall mean typical type.

(8) FIXED TURNING RADIUS, WHEEL TO WHEEL. The tracking of the caster wheels and large wheels of a wheelchair when pivoting on a spot.

(9) FIXED TURNING RADIUS, FRONT STRUCTURE TO REAR STRUCTURE. The turning radius of the wheelchair, left front foot platform to right rear wheel or right front foot platform to left rear wheel, when pivoting on a spot.

(10) INVOLVED (INVOLVEMENT). A portion or portions of the human anatomy or physiology or both that have a loss or impairment of normal function as a result of genesis, trauma, disease, inflammation, or degeneration.

(11) RAMPS, RAMPS WITH GRADIENTS. Ramps with gradients or ramps with slopes that deviate from what would otherwise be considered the normal level. An exterior ramp, as distinguished from a "walk" shall be considered an appendage to a building leading to a level above or below existing ground level. As such, a ramp shall meet certain requirements similar to those imposed upon stairs.

(12) WALK, WALKS. A predetermined, prepared-surface exterior pathway leading to or from a building or a facility or from one exterior area to another, placed on the existing ground level and not deviating from the level of the existing ground immediately adjacent.

(13) APPROPRIATE NUMBER. The number of a specific item that would be reasonably necessary, in accord with the purpose and function of a building or a facility, to accommodate individuals with specific disabilities in proportion to the anticipated number of individuals with disabilities who would use a particular building or facility.

(Acts 1965, No. 224, p. 315, §3.)