Editor's Note
Let Us Eat Cake!
- By Laurie Watanabe
- Feb 01, 2022
CUPCAKE: DEPOSITPHOTOS.COM/RUTHBLACK
As is evident by the logo on our front cover, we start celebrating Mobility
Management’s 20th anniversary with this issue. All year long, we’ll be
reminiscing via our entire suite of products — this magazine, as well as
our newsletters, podcasts, social media accounts… you name it, it’ll have
confetti and sprinkles on it.
But this anniversary is truly our chance to thank
you. From the very start, Mobility Management
has felt to me like the little magazine that could.
In our early days, we got some incredibly lucky
breaks. An interview or major news story would
appear out of nowhere. A new supporter would
show up just when we needed that. Internally, we
marveled at the blessings that came at exactly
the right times.
Some of those earliest blessings were the
editorial contributions of Rick Graver, ATP, owner
of Medtech Services Inc. in Reno, Nev. Rick
wrote the column “Tools of the Trade,” about the
importance of service and repairs in the seating
and mobility space, for our very first issue. In a
new podcast, Rick and I revisited that column to see how well it aged… even
as Rick shared that he recently found an old stash of belt drives he’d stored
and forgotten about. His younger service techs were “amazed” to hear Rick
talk about belt drives and relays! (Listen to the podcast.)
Our year will be filled with as many of these stories as we can fit onto our
pages, into our newsletters, and onto our Web site. And we’ll be celebrating
colleagues’ anniversaries as well: NRRTS turns 30 this year! So does National
Seating & Mobility. Amylior turns 25. What are you celebrating this year? Tell
us so we can celebrate with you!
As is also evident on our front cover, our big story this issue is the wide
reach of COVID-19, which is impacting seating and mobility in seemingly
infinite ways. Materials cost more; so does shipping. Clients who missed
therapy appointments may have progressed and may now need to be
reassessed. Labor shortages, a frighteningly transmissible omicron variant,
and reimbursement rates that don’t keep pace with the times have challenged
all of Complex Rehab Technology’s professional stakeholders, while
ultimately hurting consumers, whose medically necessary equipment may
be delayed.
As the pandemic starts its third year, the strain and stress of being under
siege has taken its toll on everyone. Celebrating during times like this can
sound foolhardy, like so much whistling in the dark. At the same time, a
whole year of remembering with friends, of chatting with colleagues, sounds
like a good way to combat some of the gloom.
So, please join us. If we’re all in this together — and we are — we might as
well be together with cake.
This article originally appeared in the Jan/Feb 2022 issue of Mobility Management.
About the Author
Laurie Watanabe is the editor of Mobility Management. She can be reached at lwatanabe@1105media.com.