Vertical Lift to assist with transfers off wheelchair

Hello Ingrid

Great to have a ‘pro’ visit the site – we have a few innovative readers, give it a few days and hopefully some ideas will have been poste.

Was a reason given for the decline in request?

@ingrid wrote:

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I wondered about an inflatable cushion possibly – similar to a much smaller Manga Elk for those OT’s out there – but something that could be safely encorporated into his wheelchair?…

Hi Ingrid, and welcome to the forum.
For some years I used a Mangar lifting cushion to help get me up to standing from a wheelchair. It was very similar to the Elk, but obviously smaller, and square to fit on top of a normal wheelchair cushion. It worked pretty well for me for quite a long time. The downside is that you have to carry the airlift battery around with you…

Hi Ingrid,

I had the same problems and this is how it worked out for my situation:

1) I was high risk for pressure sores so was advised not to sit on anything like the Manga (I had the Elk).

2) I contacted REMAP http://www.remap.org.uk who DIY custom equipment. I did this privately as this would not have been approved. They contacted Manga and built a c shaped cushion out of Manga material with a small compressor to raise me up and down (I also wanted to raise up to slide a bedpan or similar underneath). We never did the complete version but it was an interesting exercise.

3) To maintain independence wheelchairs with high/low really need to be considered essential and not a luxury for people needing to get from sit to stand – not having such a chair meant really expensive on site carers/PAs to lift me up and down 4 x a day and throughout school/college/uni. The wheelchair service didn’t pay any costs but because of their assessment and not providing such a chair, the social care service costs (and educational support pre age 16) were driven much higher – far more than the cost of the riser over all the years beyond comprehension (we are talking a £50 K care package that might have been at least halved with better equipment like this).

4) I lost a lot of independence and physical mobility (My MD gets worse the less I use my legs) (which meant more relying on social care assistance to move me).

5) I recently found out my wheelchair clinic deliberately didn’t tell me I had the right to pay for the rising element myself. I can no longer stand but I topped up my NHS wheelchair by using the Voucher scheme to pay for a rise module to help my independence and inclusion.

Considering the cost implications for not providing such a chair (and the personal loss of independence/mobility/physical and mental health), it would make far more sense to pay the cost of the riser module. They can be life changing :-)