Page 22 - Mobility Management, September 2017

ATP Series
Immersion, Envelopment, Off-Loading
the day, what we really care about in a cushion are two things. One: How much did it take load, force, pressure if you will, off of the ischials and put it somewhere else? The cushion that can take the load from here and move it somewhere else the best is the best cushion, assuming everything else is the same. Two: That’s where off-loading comes in. In an ideal cushion, you could say off-loading and you can say directed loading. Off-loading looks at it from the ischial’s perspective. Directed loading looks at it from the cushion’s perspective. Was the cushion designed to direct the load where we want the load to go, which by definition would be offloading the ischials?
“Offloading the ischials is the universal truth. There is nobody who sits in a wheelchair more than four hours a day who doesn’t benefit from ischial offloading.”
Different Cushion Media
Given this context, the media used to create cushions can be compared to multiple roads that can lead to the same place.
“The reason we have multiple media is we know there are side effects, if you will, to every one of them,” Rogers said. “People will use air cells because they’re light, but maybe there’s a little more maintenance because you may put a hole in it. With fluid, it’s great for immersion, it’s great for no maintenance, but on the
other side of things, it’s a little heavy. Same thing with foams: They’re comfortable, they feel good underneath you, but they can get hot. So putting the clinician in charge to be able to pick the right product from a wide portfolio is what we try to do. We try to balance it out.”
Whelan said, “Why do we use different media? Because every medium has a different characteristic on how it interacts with tissue. Because they have different characteristics under load that can be taken advantage of in proper design.”
He referred to the “science of seating” and the evolving ways that researchers are examining seat cushions to better determine their efficacy — and how that efficacy is best measured. These are questions as complex as the needs of the clients who depend on accurate answers.
“Recidivism of pressure injuries is probably the biggest single cause of death in wheelchair users, other than the natural course of the disability and disease processes,” Whelan said. “Most clini- cians will tell you that most pressure injuries can be prevented. Yet, we still have an increasing prevalence and incidence of pres- sure injuries in seated postures. So that’s a bad outcome. When something is increasing, and there is an overwhelming medical opinion that it can be prevented, that generally means there’s still some ignorance at work.” m
Ultima Bath Chair
Beach Bubble Blue Lionfish Lavender Stingray Gray
Ultima Bath Transfer
Multi-functional Bath Transfer System for use in home or facility without any bathroom modifications
→ 800.454.6612
→ www.inspiredbydrive.com → @inspiredbydrive
20 SEPTEMBER 2017 | MOBILITY MANAGEMENT
MobilityMgmt.com
3 NEW COLORS! Available Now!