07-15-2025 at 4:00 pm ET
.1 CEU
Speaker: Melanie Parker, DPT, ATP/SMS
Level: Beginner; Intermediate; Advanced
Who knew there was so much math in seating and wheeled mobility! Let’s learn together how to “do the math” for the success of everyone involved. A mobility or seating device can be a wonderful tool to empower a person with a disability, if properly configured to the whole person. When we don’t consider the perspectives of all persons involved in the evaluation team -the person, their support system, clinicians, and suppliers, we have diminished outcomes, dissatisfied clients, and equipment abandonment. Further, the lack of holistic approach to configuring these devices may cause harm in the future. As we evaluate clients for their wheelchair or other seating device, we need to measure many things for our clients and their support systems to have successful outcomes and compliance with the seating prescriptions we write. We are taught how to measure a client in a proper sitting position but successful outcomes and compliance with our equipment prescriptions depends on a lot more than proper anthropometric measurements and calculations of how a person will sit in their chair. In this course, we will review considerations for taking measurements of the whole person and properly calculating these measurements to create the specifications of their mobility or seating device to optimize function, reduce pain, and minimize their risk of skin breakdown. We will also explore more comprehensive and practical measurements of the client, their function, their environment, their support systems, funding sources, and more. By holistically considering the person and the full scope of their daily life and function, we can better configure a chair to fit the person and their life. In doing so, we will increase our outcomes of client satisfaction, skin protection, compliance, and optimal function.
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify at least five (5) anthropometric measurements of clients to consider when configuring a mobility or seating device and state their relevance to the configuration.
- Identify three (3) functional considerations of clients when configuring a mobility or seating device and that their relevance.
- Identify four (4) measurable considerations to reduce a client’s risk for skin breakdown in a mobility or seating device and state how they are to be considered.
