Seating and Positioning

 

I was very discouraged with my first wheelchairs. It took me a couple of years to figure out that your chair is part of your attire. A chair should fit you like a well-tailored suit and its design blend with your personality. When all this works together you hardly know it's under you! ~ Frank (T12 SCI) from Spinal Cord Injuries: Management and Rehabilitation by Sisto, Druin, Sliwinski

 

A properly fitted wheelchair will facilitate maneuvrability, control, and your general mobility to move about and do what you need to do. A poorly fitted chair will do quite the opposite - it can make a ramp seem like an impossible impasse, prevent your maneuvrability, and can negatively affect your overall safety and posture.  

 

So then, how does someone decide what your wheelchair seating and positioning needs are? To answer that question, you should have a look at New South Whales Spinal Cord Injury Service website, specifically their Seating Education modules.

 

The website offers 10 educational modules, each with additional resources such as print-outs, videos, and quizzes. Here is the list of the ten modules:

 

1 - Spinal Cord Injury and Seating

2 - Developing a Client Profile

3 - Hands-on Assessment

4 - Body Measurements

5 - Evaluation of Seating and Wheeled Mobility Systems

6 - Seating Made Easy

7 - Postural Interventions

8 - Pressure Management

9 - Manual Wheelchair

10 - Power Mobility

 

Also, check out the other links on the site, there is so much, its worth spending a few afternoons to go through.

A Few Good Books

 I love to read, and some of you may as well, so here are a few reference books that are jam-packed with helpful information! I am posting the link to these three specific books, in a gmail book search format, for a few reasons.

 

First - These three particular books have lots of information that you cannot always find on the Internet. They list other resources, and they recognize the sensitive nature of the subject while providing clear explanations with helpful illustrations on an extensive range of SCI subjects.

 

Second - These books were recommended to me by others, whether professional, aspiring professional, or interested other.

 

Third - Why the google links? Did you know that you can often preview books in google? Well, you can and it usually helps you get a feel for the information in the book without having to pick it up. The first book from the Mayo Clinic has a good preview. The second two do not, but you have an option to search 'From Inside the Book' , meaning search the actual book for the subject you are curious about.

 

Fourth - This blog is based out of Nova Scotia, Canada - and these books were available at the university Library! That's right, the free to borrow library :) Also the universities and colleges are all linked together by a search engine called Novanet, if you are a member of the library you can have books brought in from anywheres including out of province. If you are not a member, you are still most definitely allowed to go into, say, the Dalhousie Kellogg library (which is wheelchair accessible) and look through the books as you like without taking them out. There are lots of options.

 

Fifth - If these books don't interest you, now you know how to look up ones that do. Search google books and you can select 'preview and full view' in your search options to get a peek inside the book. I actually get lots of great recipes using this trick! but you can read whole books there - http://books.google.com/ 

 

happy reading!

 

1. Mayo Clinic Guide to Living with a Spinal Cord Injury: Moving Ahead with Your Life by The Mayo Clinic

 

2. Spinal Cord Injury: Functional Rehabilitation by Martha Freeman Somers (although I actually have only seen the 1st edition, I bet this one is even better!)

 

3. Spinal Cord Injuries: Management and Rehabilitation by Sue Ann Sisto, Erica Druin, Martha Macht Sliwinski

This Blog has a sister YouTube site

Videos can be super helpful.

Ever wonder how other people transfer?

What their home modifications look like?

Want to see how other wheelchair sports are played?

Want to know what its like to travel in a wheelchair?
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Well, a video can show you that. This blog didn't seem complete unless we could include some of these great video resources. Sadly, I don't really know how to do that - but I DID know how to make a youTube account. This post is going to help you access the YouTube account with all the cool videos.
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SCIrehab has a channel on YouTube that you can access here: http://www.youtube.com/user/SCIrehab

Once you visit that channel, if you already have a YouTube account (which is pretty handy and easy to get, with instructions on the YouTube site) you can subscribe which makes it easier to follow. Or, if you are not interested in having an account, follow the above mentioned link and peruse from there.
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Once at the site, on the very top next to 'SCIrehab Channel subscribe', you should see a list of options such as 'All, Uploads, Favorites, Playlists'. To get a sense of how many videos there are, click on playlists. The list to the right side of the currently displayed video should become a scrollable list - which is actually all the playlists. Scroll through the playlists until you find one you like, then click 'More Info'. The scrollable list should then display all the videos specific to the playlist you have selected.
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Videos range from bed mobility, to cooking, to travel, to transportation, to sports, to home modifications, and so on and so on. I have also tried to separate the video playlists by videos specific to paraplegia and quadriplegia. As this is a growing endeavor, some lists have many videos, and some have few. The goal is to let the channel grow as I find new videos. Feel free to let me know if you have any good ones to link up!
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Another neat thing on the YouTube channel, if you scroll all the way down, is the list of subscriptions. Those are other channels that were also interesting and might be worth checking out.
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Happy video watching!
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(ps - why the weird spacing? well, this blogger site seems to have forgotten to recognize the enter/new line bar - so for now, weird spacing. )