Robin’s Journey with Adaptiv’s Special Seating

Robin is a long-term wheelchair user having sustained a spinal cord injury over 30 years ago. Since that time he has led an active lifestyle, travelling and attending festivals in his van with his children.

As a consequence of his spinal injury Robin has experienced longstanding issues with pressure sores and underwent surgery to remove some of the bone around his left pelvis. The impact of the resulting pelvic obliquity had a detrimental effect on his trunk posture causing a significant scoliosis in his thoracic spine.

Robin was using a wheelchair from his local NHS service and a Roho pressure cushion but was struggling due to the weight of the chair and the lack of support and stability offered by the cushion.

As an active chair user Robin requires a lightweight and robust wheelchair that he can self-propel without undue fatigue and wear and tear on the joints and soft tissues of his upper body. He also requires significantly more pressure care and postural support than can be provided with an ‘off the shelf’ solution,

Robin contacted Adaptiv to get a clinical perspective to address not only his mobility, but also his pressure care and postural needs. Steve, our trained and experienced mobility and seating specialist, worked carefully with Robin to prescribe the optimum solution.

Working with our local partner, Consolor Ltd a fully bespoke, moulded seat cushion and backrest was formed using carved foam to provide postural correction and support with dimensional gel added around the Ischium for additional pressure relief. The seating was interfaced using lightweight, quick release hardware from V-Trak so that Robin can easily remove it during transfers. In addition to this Adaptiv went the extra mile with custom carbon fibre sideguards, cut to the exact size required.

Steve prescribed a Tilite ZRA titanium wheelchair which meets the brief and provides a lightweight, durable and robust chair with an ‘open frame’ for Robin to independently complete his car transfers. It also has an adjustable centre of gravity so that the rear wheel position can be altered to retain stability and accommodate the seating that was interfaced onto the chair.

Robin was delighted with the results and the improvements to his posture, mobility and function were obvious for all to see! We have included a series of photos which illustrate the process from start to finish, including the shape capture/moulding process and the handover of the finished article.

Please get in touch if you need a holistic and clinical solution with a team that always go the extra mile.

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