Complex Rehab Technology
(CRT) success often depends
on a product’s ability to
accommodate the needs of a
particular client.
Mobile shower commode chairs
aren’t always a highly customizable
category of CRT, and in the bariatric
space, even fewer choices have
been available. But Raz Design’s
new bariatric line could have you
rethinking what to expect from
commode chairs.
Introducing the RazBari Line
Raz Design’s RAZ-AT600
The new RazBari lineup features
the Raz-AP600 (Attendant Propel);
the Raz-AT600 (Attendant Tilt);
and the Raz-SP600 (Self-Propel),
all with 600-lb. weight capacities.
David Harding, CEO of Raz Design,
explained the line’s ambitious goals.
“We wanted to develop a bariatric
tilt chair that didn’t use a powered
linear actuator, which is the easy way
to put somebody who weighs 600
lbs. in and out of tilt,” he said. “The
more [equipment] that needs to be
charged in hospitals, the more difficult
it is. It’s okay for stuff that gets used
every day, like patient lifts; they’ve got
automatic charging to make sure it’s
charged when needed.
“But they may not need a bariatric
chair in a hospital for three months.
And then all of a sudden, two
patients need it. Nobody’s going
to remember to keep it charged
when it’s only used intermittently. So
that was the number one thing we
wanted to address.”
Raz’s Weight Assist Spring System
(WASS) uses gas struts and coil springs
to counterbalance the user’s weight
and reduce the caregiver effort
needed to tilt. No charging is needed.
The Raz team also wanted the
RazBari line to accommodate a
range of body types. “We wanted
to have a chair that was modular,”
Harding said. “Because in the
bariatric category, it can be anyone
from a muscular football player who
weighs 400 lbs. to someone who is
5’2″ and weighs 400 lbs. We needed
a huge amount of flexibility to
accommodate various body sizes.”
Tilting Techniques
Tilting is critical to efficient transfers
for this client group, Harding added:
“When you transfer with any kind
of lift, whether it’s a ceiling lift or a
mobile lift, the center of mass pulls
the person into a tilted position in
the sling. You can’t get somebody
at 90°/90° to the floor. They just hang
in a tilted position, so dropping
them onto a seat that is flat typically
perches them on the front of the seat.
“If you can drop them into a chair
that’s tilted, they can be dropped
into the back of that seat. To readjust
their position, sliding them back
down a slope 2″ or 3″ versus trying
to pull them back on a level seat is
much easier to do.”
RazBari chairs can adjust to better
distribute a user’s weight. “We can
change where the weight is located,
the center of mass of the individual
relative to the wheelbase,” Harding
said. “Our backrest can be adjusted
fore/aft. We have sling upholstery with
an adjustable strap, so we can move
them back a few inches that way.”
While the standard weight
capacity of RazBari chairs is 600 lbs.,
the Raz Design team can accommodate
higher weights. “We do a lot
of custom frames, as well,” Harding
said. “We make longer seat frames,
longer base frames.” At maximum
tilt (25° posterior), a standard RazBari
chair is 52″ long, or 42″ long at 0° tilt.
Improving the Seating & Mobility
Clinician’s Experience
Emma Friesen, Ph.D., Clinical Director
at Raz Design, said many RazBari
features were born of comments
from clinicians, end users, and
funding sources. “One piece of
feedback we had received for this
particular product category is it’s
often quite stressful for a clinician to
do a custom order because there
are so few opportunities to trial the
product and so many things that are
hard to identify,” Friesen said. “It’s
easy for things to go wrong.”
Customizability is great for finetuning
a chair’s fit, but can be complex
for time-strapped clinicians. “As we
relaunched this range, we expanded
our standard offerings,” Friesen noted.
“We now have [seat] widths that we
consider standard: 22″, 24″, 26″, 28″ and 30″ wide chairs. And from there,
all of the options and accessories that we have are part of our standard offerings.
From the perspective of understanding
what options are available
and making it easy to configure, the
big benefit of our range now is that so
much of it is just standard equipment.
I think it takes some of the stress out,
because it makes it much easier to
say, ‘This is what I’m getting and this is
how it’s going to be configured.’”
In true CRT fashion, Friesen added,
“Even though we’ve configured
our chair to be sized correctly and
configured correctly for a specific
user, there is still a lot of adjustment
to allow it to be fine tuned and
individualized even further. That
takes some of the guesswork off the
clinicians because they know even if
they order what looks on paper like
a specialized chair, it still has a lot
of adjustment. And if we still can’t
get it to work right even with that
adjustment, the chairs are modular,
which usually means we can swap in
another part or another option, and
it will work for a particular client.”
The end result is a system “that
works for that individual, and that’s
taking into account their seating,
their functioning, their skin, their positioning
and their comfort,” Friesen
said. “We can offer this enormous
range of products and accessories
that can be individualized, but still
have a lot of options if we need to
fine-tune it to a user later on.”
And for clients, that can be
empowering. “As we talk about
people with larger bodies, there
can be a whole lot of issues around
loss of independence, where they
can’t do a lot of tasks on their own,”
Friesen said. “Part of the comfort
factor may be that they want to be
able to transfer independently or with
minimal assistance from someone
else. We can help by configuring a
chair that has different options and
accessories that facilitate that so they
are motivated and they have ownership
of getting the equipment and
also using it on a daily basis.”
