CRT Technology Showcase
NXT Cushions & Backs: The Details Make the Difference
The new NXT (“Next”) seat cushions and backrests
from Motion Composites perfectly demonstrate the
importance of details.
Motion Composites, known for its gorgeous ultralightweight
carbon fiber chairs, acquired the NXT line from
Dynamic Health Care Solutions in 2019, and this is the first
big overhaul of NXT since then. Jean-Philippe Villeneuve,
Motion Composites’ Director of Marketing, noted, “The
NXT seating series perfectly complements the Motion
Composites high-end rigid and folding wheelchair
models. It’s a great extension of our product offering.”
The BioFit cushion is NXT’s cushion for clients who need
deep immersion and are at medium to high risk of skin
breakdown, and there’s a wide range of sizes to match
(widths: 10-26"; depths: 10-22"). The NüFit cushion, for
clients at low to medium pressure injury risk, is available
in 16-22" widths and 16-20" depths. NXT back supports
comprise a wide range of models and are available in
multiple heights for pelvic or thoracic support.
The Cover As Gatekeeper
NXT was originally created by Tony Persaud, a wheelchair
user who knew firsthand how factors such as microclimate
and transfers can impact seating products.
That level of insight is at the center of the refresh. For
example, NXT cushions and backs now use smartx3D
fabric in their covers.
Alli Speight, MScOT, ATP, is the Director of Clinical
Education & Training/Motion U at Motion Composites.
Explaining how the team decided on fabrics, Speight
said, “There’s always a clinical reason behind what you
do in this industry. [The covers] are a combination of
smartx3D fabric, which is a knit spacer mesh fabric, as
well as a ballistic weave fabric on the backside of the
cover to help it stay in place with the back shell, and to
help it hold up over time, because it’s along the back of
the laterals, where armrests tend to rub during transfers.
“The smartx3D gave great clinical properties, and
adding that ballistic weave fabric to the back makes it
functional as well as clinical. We know products have to
serve a clinical need, but they also have to stand up to
the wear and tear that they go through with our users.”
Smartx3D’s four-way stretch, Speight said, is critical.
“The fabric is the outer piece. Not only is it what you see
first aesthetically, but it covers your cushion or back,
which means it’s the gatekeeper of whether you get the
benefits of the support surface. So the contouring, the
laterals, the material underneath — the foam or any
other material the support surface is made out of — the
fabric is the gatekeeper to that. It can have clinical properties
itself that add benefits to the end user, but it still
has to allow you to envelop and immerse into the device.
“A two-way-stretch fabric will stretch either width wise or
length wise, but not in both of directions at the same time. A
four-way-stretch fabric will simultaneously stretch width wise
and length wise. It’s going to allow contour to the user as well
as to the contours of the cushion or back support and really
allow for that maximum contact, that immersion, that envelopment.
So you get the clinical benefits of the anatomical
features built into the product. That four-way-stretch is really
what allows you to get the full benefit from that design.”
“That combination keeps the structure of the cover
over time as well as has those clinical features and benefits
of the four-way-stretch 3D spacer fabric,” said Product
Manager Phil Goodenough. “So we wanted to optimize
both: the longevity and the structure, plus the properties
of the immersion, low shear, and breathability.”
A Look That’s Compatible
Motion Composites is known for its aesthetics, and that
principle carried over to the NXT project.
“The thing I like about the aesthetic refresh is it has the
complementary pairing to the Motion Composites line of
chairs,” Goodenough added. “These pieces of seating
are modular, and I think they hit a really nice balance
point with the aesthetics. I think it would complement
pretty much anything you mount it on because we
added subtle signature [elements], but also universal
[elements] that we’ve incorporated into the look.”
Even zippers were carefully thought out, Goodenough said, “It is a waterproof, nautical-grade zipper, designed
to be an extra barrier for any type of moisture getting into
the cushion and negatively affecting foam. That zipper is
incorporated into our inner moisture-barrier cover, which
is standard on all NXT cushions, as well as the outer
cover. Going back to the brand and aesthetic refresh,
the designers found a really cool way of incorporating
branding onto the outer surface of the zipper itself.”
The Importance of Aesthetics
Throughout the NXT lineup, you’ll see exquisite branding
touches, such as the NXT logo and model names on
cushions and backs, not to mention the elegant treatment
of the NXT logo on that new two-way zipper.
“Whether it’s a cushion, a back support, or a wheelchair,
we know aesthetics matter,” Speight said. “It
matters in almost every industry. But when it comes to
medical devices, the end user often doesn’t have a lot
of control of the product they can obtain. Whether you’re
slotted for a K0005 wheelchair or for a basic cushion,
wherever you fall within funding limits, you don’t have
a lot of control. So within that category, if you can find
a product that appeals to you, it allows for a bit of that
control to be placed back in the end user’s hands. They
can choose their preference. That can mean a lot.”
“It was a team effort and a fun project,” Villeneuve
said of the refresh. “It was interesting to have marketing
immersed in this project, because it can really make a
difference.”
“When it’s an unoccupied piece of seating, I think
there’s something slick, functional and modern about
it,” Goodenough said of the NXT lineup. “But at the end
of the day, there is a person who uses it, and they’re first
and foremost.”
This article originally appeared in the Jul/Aug 2021 issue of Mobility Management.