Mobility Management

  • Home
  • Topics
    • Automotive Mobility
    • Billing / Reimbursement
    • Government / Legislation
    • Home Accessibility
    • Pediatrics
    • Power Chairs
    • Seating & Positioning
    • Ultralightweights
  • News
  • Featured
  • Podcasts
  • Request Media Kit
  • Webinars
  • Subscribe
  • Digital Edition
  • Awards
  • Advertise

Ride-Along Mentor: Virtual Seating Coach Aims to Increase Client Compliance

May 1, 2014 by Mobility Management

Any clinician or ATP who has recommended or built a wheelchair seating system knows the real wild card is the consumer. Once he or she is away from the clinic or rehab facility and real life begins — will your client remember to recline as often as you recommended? Will he tilt back a sufficient number of degrees? Will she hold that position long enough for it to be clinically effective?

For every client who makes no concerted effort to adhere to your recommendations, there are many more who intend to follow your suggestions, but fall short throughout the day. They overestimate the number of degrees they tilt back or the number of minutes they stay in that position.

That’s why Permobil’s March announcement at the International Seating Symposium (ISS) in Vancouver, B.C., was so exciting. The complex rehab power chair manufacturer has partnered with the University of Pittsburgh’s Human Engineering Research Laboratories to introduce the Virtual Seating Coach.

For some time, manufacturers have been able to program a power chair’s electronics to remember how far back its user is supposed to tilt, and to give the consumer an audible “Time to tilt!” reminder.

But the Seating Coach system, which works via a smartphone app, goes to the next level by “mentoring” seating system clients via real-time feedback. Among the Coach’s abilities:

  • Indicating the proper sequence of power positioning functions: e.g., tilt first, then recline.
  • Showing the client when he has achieved the prescribed tilt or recline angle and when he has stayed in that position long enough per his clinician’s recommendations.
  • Displaying current tilt, recline, legrest and seat elevator positions.
  • Reminding clients when to perform weight shifts.

Clinicians are able not just to record their positioning recommendations, but also can track whether clients are achieving their positioning goals and how they’re falling short. That gives clinicians the chance to intervene in a more timely manner.

And rather than being just an alarm clock, the Seating Coach is able to take other factors into account: If the chair is in motion (i.e., riding in a motor vehicle) or the client just performed a weight shift, the Seating Coach won’t prompt another one.

One of the most tantalizing abilities of the Seating Coach is collecting and storing data on clients’ positioning activities. Clinicians could conceivably provide funding sources with statistics on how often clients achieved their positioning goals. Clinicians could also collect data over time that could be cross referenced with improved outcomes for consumers: healthier skin, fewer pressure sores, fewer surgical interventions.

Those applications will take time to achieve, but at ISS, Permobil reps were already talking about the opportunity to collect data that could benefit the entire industry and the community of wheelchair users. And in the mean time, the Virtual Seating Coach has plenty to offer individual wheelchair users: Permobil has licensed the Virtual Seating Coach technology from Pittsburgh and expects to roll it out soon.

Virtual Seating Coach

Virtual Seating Coach

Virtual Seating Coach

Related Articles Read More >

Jenx Begins Consultation Process to Cease Manufacturing Operations
The U.K.-based company has for decades specialized in pediatric positioning systems.
Briefly: munevo, Permobil Sign European Partnership; Neuralink Announces New Investor
Featuring munevo, Permobil, Neuralink, and CoreNest Capital.
Mobility Management Webinar: Clinicians to Discuss Pediatric Positioning Beyond the Wheelchair
The Aug. 12 webinar will cover lying posture care management, standing, gait training, and sitting outside of the wheelchair.
Numotion to Acquire Motion, Canadian Provider of CRT, Accessibility Solutions
Motion will continue to operate as a Canadian-based entity after the transaction is complete.

GET THE FREE NEWSLETTER

Mobility Management Newsletter

Subscribe to Mobility Management's newsletter for industry & product news, trends and resources. Click here.
podcasts
Mobility Management
  • HME Business
  • Senior Housing News
  • Home Health Care News
  • Skilled Nursing News
  • Hospice News
  • Behavioral Health Business
  • Contact Us
  • About Us

Copyright © 2025 WTWH Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media
Privacy Policy | Advertising | About Us

Search Mobility Management

  • Home
  • Topics
    • Automotive Mobility
    • Billing / Reimbursement
    • Government / Legislation
    • Home Accessibility
    • Pediatrics
    • Power Chairs
    • Seating & Positioning
    • Ultralightweights
  • News
  • Featured
  • Podcasts
  • Request Media Kit
  • Webinars
  • Subscribe
  • Digital Edition
  • Awards
  • Advertise