Head rest fitting – had a great try out today!

I am rather excited about my afternoon so I thought I’d share – I had a company (who happened to be local) come and show me some headrests (for my wheelchair0. The young chap was ever so good in every way – came with lots of things and nuts and bolts to make up parts – most of these things seem to be mechano based! He also had adult and child version as I’ve got a little head!

Currently i have a flat headrest with slight curves at the side, pretty hard and high up on my head (so no neck support). It does the job of stopping my head falling back but in the car it’s actually nearly taken my head off because we go round a corner and my head rolls back off the side of the headrest and then under it (head wedged beneath headrest and on top of chair back).

Now I saw some of these :-) http://www.matrixseating.com/ophead5_new.php which is what I originally thought looked just the ticket. They are called Heads First. They were good but didn’t stop my neck folding and my head going side ways when going round corners quickly or over bumps. They were also very hot in the sun!

The best one was something that’s only been out for a year and was designed by a special school mainly for children with CP. I think we are going to purchase it – it’s not cheap at over £400 and I guess they don’t encourage wheelchair clinics to use them as they are not crash test approved. There is nothing stopping you using them in the car but if you had a major accident or whiplash type shunt then you would probably get bad neck injuries or be killed. However, by then the rest of me is likely to have fallen apart and my wobbly head fallen off frontwards along with my limbs that are hardly attached!

It’s called the rollacoaster – because it looks like the neck brace use to keep you in when upside down and left right G force. Not that hubs is going to drive that fast but….

Imagine a lumbar roll type thing behind your neck under your occipital bone which is a covered rigid ‘head rest’ with arms on the side like little claws that rotate to come over your shoulder and rest at the side of your neck under your jaw line. (So they can just be lowered when in the car or for snoozing). This would also mean the vent straps at the back of my head won’t rub as nothing touches the place a normal headrest goes.

It looks very odd in the up position – sure lots of people will stare lol but I think I’m going to try it. Any one else tried one?