Lightweight Wheelchairs for Better Comfort and Positioning

What is an ergonomic or lightweight wheelchair?

Ergonomic engineering and design is intended to optimize a product’s usage by taking human factors such as height, weight, temperature preferences and proportions into account. For items that are used for extended lengths of time such as office furniture and mobility devices, weighing in these factors can avoid discomfort and injuries while maximizing the user’s comfort and ability to perform everyday tasks.

While older wheelchair models and traditionally designed wheelchairs do offer the user some measure of freedom and mobility, they tend toward bulkiness, heaviness and are often challenging to maneuver. Unlike ergonomically configured wheelchairs, most types of older models require cushioning with egg crates or memory foam to prevent pressure points that can turn into decubitus ulcers.

In modern wheelchair design, four main factors are involved. The first is force, or how hard the user must push the wheels to initiate motion. Continuous muscular effort, or duration, is how long it takes to complete the action to move the chair. Repetition is the number of times the motion must be made to move the chair and its occupant from point A to point B. Finally, the frame and seating must be designed to ensure that the user has the best posture possible and doesn’t slump onto the arm rests or forward onto a table in an effort to get comfortable.

With lightweight wheelchairs, design factors include lightweight frames made of the same grade of aluminum used in aircraft construction and weighing in at under 20 pounds; specific angling to support the body along its natural contours for the best posture; seats made of antimicrobial fabric that minimize pressure points; and rear wheels that can be manually propelled with ease, even around corners. When a wheelchair is planned with these aspects in mind, it maximizes the user’s comfort, allows for self-propulsion with less effort and reduced chances of repetitive motion injuries to the shoulders, arms and hands, while the ergonomic design additionally reduces the chance of further spinal injuries, skin shearing and bedsores.

Unlike traditional wheelchairs which frequently require the use of specially equipped vans for transportation, ergonomic wheelchairs can be folded in order to fit into a car’s trunk or into a storage compartment on a train or a plane, enabling access to the world outside the person’s residence.

Who uses lightweight wheelchairs?

Lightweight wheelchairs are used by people living with conditions that prevent them from walking and that interfere with their ability to perform daily living activities even with the assistance of crutches, a cane or a walker. Users of ergonomic wheelchairs must have enough upper body strength to propel themselves or have a caregiver physically capable of doing so. Users must also retain the cognitive ability to use the chair safely.

Chronic conditions requiring the use of an ergonomic wheelchair include paraplegia, post-polio syndrome, neuromuscular diseases such as MS, arthritis in the lower extremities, lower limb amputations and cerebral palsy. People recovering from surgery to the feet, knees and hips, or from other lower body injuries may use them as well.

How are lightweight wheelchairs used?

Lightweight wheelchair users are transferred from a bed or conventional chair to the wheelchair. After ensuring that they are properly positioned, users place their hands on the rear wheels at the 2 o’clock position and gives them a push.

To avoid repetitive motion shoulder injuries, the seat must be adjusted so that the user’s arms have some “bend” to them in order to apply the optimal amount of force to the wheels.