Todd Richardson, ATP, Eastern Regional Sales Manager for
Motion Composites, knows first hand the impact a wheelchair
user’s first ultralight can have.

“When you’re in a room, staring at the ceiling, trying to go to sleep
at night, it’s a dark place,” he said, remembering his days in rehab
after a motorcycle accident. “You don’t know how any of it’s going to
go, and if it’s even worth doing at that point: ‘I’m going to be sitting
around in a wheelchair.’ So that first chair was very important to how
quickly I recovered, and it did affect my recovery the first year or two.”

Richardson doesn’t entirely remember his first wheelchair
assessment and acknowledged that in those early days of rehab,
“I figured, ‘They’re still going to work on my legs, we’re going to
get my legs going again.’

“My focus was on walking again, and maybe the PTs were like
‘Don’t bring up the wheelchair, he thinks he’s going to walk again.’
In 1987, I don’t think we had near as many positive role models.
We certainly didn’t have the exposure to people going forward in
chairs and living super productive lives like we do today.”

His first ultralight — with a 20″ back, 8″ casters and airless
inserts — wasn’t the greatest match for his athletic lifestyle: “I
broke three or four [casters]. I’d get caster flutter going, I’d catch
them on something. I was a kid who raced motocross. I would use
my chair fairly aggressively.

“The first couple of years were horrible in that first chair. I still
have my left foot turned in slightly because I couldn’t get through
my home with both legrests on the chair. I had to just use one footplate
and cross my feet and go through the home like that. There
was no home visit back then. That was completely non-existent.”

A Career & a Calling

After he tried out a rigid, custom-fit chair and ordered his own,
Richardson began working in the complex rehab industry. And as
an ATP, he remembered his experiences as a wheelchair user.

“Demos are huge, trying people in demos and seeing how
things unfold,” he said. “Wheelchairs are almost like clothing:
Different brands tend to fit a little bit differently, even with the
same exact specs. We had three chairs, at least, to try. We would
say, ‘The strengths and weaknesses of this chair are this, the
strengths and weaknesses based on past experiences of this chair
are this. What goals do you have that we need to set your chair
up for? A setup more for indoors, a setup more for outdoors,
those two setups are very different. What’s your environment like,
what’s your house like, what’s the soil at home like?’ You want to
get in your mind’s eye how the chair is going to be used.

“And then typically, I like to get them in a demo and adjust
it to them, so they can get a good, accurate beginning, and let
them try it for a few days. Then I go back to them after a week. It’s
not just a one-time eval, if at all possible.”

A Self-Evaluation

If Richardson went back in time to do an eval for his newly injured,
younger self, what would he observe? What would he suggest?

“At 22, that really did define me,” he said of his athletic
pursuits. “I would think, ‘This kid’s going to be active, probably
going to be a little rough on chairs. He’s probably going to be
technically minded and the dude was probably fit.’ I would set up
a very reactive chair and probably something minimalist, not a lot
of extra stuff on it. Heavily performance based.”

While components such as anti-tippers, seat belts and armrests
can sound like safeguards, Richardson said, “That can lead to
false dependencies. You put an armrest on a chair that’s not truly
needed for that person, and the next thing you know, maybe
they develop a reliance on that armrest for transfers and pressure
relief. Now you’ve got something on the chair that really inhibits
their mobility and their freedom to get into their car quickly, slide
out of the chair easily and efficiently. Some people need items on
the chair that others don’t. It’s about each individual.”

He recalled an eval for a young woman who’d been injured
from falling off a roof.

“The most terrifying feeling in the world for her would be
getting into the chair and having the [center of gravity] too far
forward and having the chair tip backwards,” he said. “That
would be it for that demo: ‘I’m done, I don’t want to see this chair
again.’ So you have to be sure in that case to move that center of
gravity back, go for a little more stability initially and work from
there. Don’t put her in a situation where she’s going to feel that
sensation again. Let her warm up to this and feel safe and secure,
so she feels like, ‘This is okay, I’m not going to be injured trying
these totally new things.’ Keep that individual’s history in mind.”

Writing a Success Story

As an ATP, Richardson learned the many challenges of specifying
an optimal ultralight. And he also has a client’s perspective: “My
self image maybe wasn’t quite as good as it could have been in a
very sleek, tight, maneuverable, tucked chair that let me have the
mobility I needed.”

Because rehab stays are so short for spinal cord injury clients,
Richardson suggests giving new users plenty of demo time.
“It’s great to push around in a showroom with hard carpeting
that was made for mobility, and you can think something for five
minutes when you have people watching you, waiting to hear your
reaction,” he said. “The client may think, ‘They got this for me
because we thought it was a good direction, so I should like it.’
I don’t want that. I want them to go home, when they’re in their
own quiet space, and figure it out for themselves.”

Despite the advances in ultralightweight materials and
engineering processes, Richardson said the emphasis needs
to stay on the consumer. “This industry is so much more about
the person than it is just about the technological aspects of any
chair,” he said. “When you take the person’s lifestyle, personality,
and goals as the priority, you can then help them choose
an amazing chair that maximizes their mobility. That’s where the
details in the technology then make a huge difference.”