Page 27 - Mobility Management, March 2019

ATP Series
Fighting Fatigue
Why Wheelchair Users
Get Tired & How Optimizing CRT Can Help
ACCORDING TO A 2016 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report, America is a rest-deprived nation. Whether it’s from work overload or family duties, personal electronics or personal problems, one in three adults, said the CDC report, is regularly short-changed on sleep.
Maybe that’s why fatigue among wheelchair users can be so difficult to identify and address. If just about everyone is routinely tired, is fatigue for wheelchair users something that should stand out as a priority?
Yes, for several key reasons.
The Price of Fatigue
Consumers who have mobility-related disabilities may expe- rience fatigue from additional forces, said Jean Sayre, MSOT, ATP, CEAC, VP of R&D Clinical Development for Pride Mobility Products Corp.
“I think fatigue is naturally occurring every day due to gravity,” Sayre said. “Just trying to stay upright can be fatiguing.”
Derek Wenzel, PT, MBA, Account Manager for Sunrise Medical, believes fatigue among wheelchair users is a common problem, and one important to address.
“It is a significant problem, and the one thing that is tricky about fatigue — unlike pain or a pressure wound or an ulcer — is there’s no immediate indication to the wheelchair user client that there is something wrong,” Wenzel said. “Fatigue is more of a cumulative effect over a prolonged period of time. It will set in during the course of the day or maybe over a longer period, like over the course of a week. Then [the consumer] will maybe take time off during the weekend to recover, then do it all over again the next week.”
Fatigue can also be hard to define or identify. “It’s an uncom- fortable feeling,” Wenzel said. “It doesn’t necessarily feel like
MobilityMgmt.com
MOBILITY MANAGEMENT | MARCH 2019 25
By Laurie Watanabe
MAN FATIGUED: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/PAUL BRADBURY