Page 24 - Mobility Management, June 2018

Pediatric Series
Sunup to Sundown Positioning
in product design. With Inspired by Drive, he said, “We found real opportunities to grow the product line with unique products — and these are very unique products.”
Take, for example, the P Pod, an activity/leisure chair with a black beanbag base, a neon-colored positioning seat, and a silhouette that
charms kids with postural
needs (not to mention their
siblings). Then there’s Nessie,
a floor-positioning system
just as brightly colored and
with a shape reminiscent of
a sea monster. Inspired by
Drive’s latest launch is the
Tusky Tilt & Recline Chair,
an activity chair for the
classroom, dining room or
playroom.
It’s clear that positioning
isn’t the only function that Inspired by Drive takes seriously.
“A couple of years ago,” Serhan said, “we received feedback from families and clinicians that while they liked the many product lines that were offered, they felt it lacked in color options and looked too institutional.
A mom called us and said that her daughter’s favorite color was pink and she wanted a pink car seat, but the only color we offered was an outdated blue. It’s such an easy concept that gets lost in the shuffle, but color does matter.” Thus Inspired by Drive products are currently available in Roadster Red, Convertible Pink, Dune Buggy Beige, Speedway Gray, Go Kart Green and Rally Blue.
“Some of the best feedback we received is that parents can put our products, such as the P Pod, in their child’s playroom and it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb because of its medical look,” Serhan said. “It looks like it actually belongs in a child’s playroom, and they haven’t had that option before.”
What Parents Want
While the company does offer wheelchairs — including the Kanga with tilt and the stroller-style, lightweight Trotter — Inspired by Drive’s sunup-to-sundown product line offers kids positioning support in the bathroom (with complex bath chairs and hygiene products) and the car (with positioning car seats).
“We do a tremendous job of making sure the user is comfortable and correctly positioned while they are in the chair, but what about when they are out of it?” Serhan asked.
Since Drive is an international company, Serhan said the Inspired by Drive team benefits from insight and
24 JUNE 2018 | MOBILITY MANAGEMENT
feedback it receives from abroad: “We get insights from all over the world,” he noted. But the idea of 24-hour postural support is still relatively new in the United States compared, for example, to Europe. And Serhan under- stands that in the time-crunched days of clinicians and
Inspired by Drive’s P Pod chairs provide positioning in a design that’s anything but clinically typical.
ATPs, these “ancillary” products can be overlooked.
“The industry is limited with funding and time,” he said. “Our providers are somewhat constricted in how they can support a family’s needs. Typically, the provider will try to get the child everything they feel they need — and the key word here is need. That’s often limited, unfortunately,
to a high-cost power chair or [manual] wheelchair. Maybe a few ‘ancillary’ items.”
Parents, however, yearn for more.
“Parents absolutely want to take care of needs, but they also have wants. They want their child to assimi- late. They want their child to feel welcomed in a home environment. That’s where the P Pod comes in, when a parent feels like ‘This is what I wanted for my child.’ They look good in it, whether it’s a stroller or bathing products. That gets lost sometimes.”
Serhan added that these non-wheelchair products are entirely functional: “Everything we start with has a clinical basis,” he said. “We start with the clinical side and work from there to make it look good and feel good. That is what the Inspired division is.”
Motivating Families & Communities
Inspired by Drive is working on educating clinicians and ATPs about its sunup-to-sundown positioning mission, and also is building a community of families that can share their challenges and celebrate their victories together via #LiveInspired online pages.
Ultimately, the message from Inspired by Drive is that this company is wholly committed to the complex rehab space... and also to positioning beyond the wheelchair, and the inclusion that comes with that.
“The best stories we get,” Serhan said, “are from parents who say, ‘We got a P Pod for our daughter, and our younger son is jealous. He wants one, too.’
“That makes the child using the product feel good, that makes Mom and Dad feel good, and that’s part of what we should be looking at. It’s not just about the phys- ical state. It’s also the mental and emotional state for the caregiver and the child.” m
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