Page 11 - Mobility Management, January/February 2020

Accessibility Series
A Key
to Better
Outcomes?
Why to Invite Adaptive Automotive Specialists to Your Wheelchair Assessments
By Laurie Watanabe
If you could create the optimal team to conduct a complex rehab technology (CRT) seating and wheeled mobility assessment, who would you include?
You’d start with the client, of course, then expand to family members and caregivers, the CRT clinician, and the ATP supplier. Depending on a client’s particular needs, you might add other specialists — speech pathologists, recreation therapists, respiratory therapists, case managers, school personnel, maybe manufacturer reps.
Great! But is that everyone who should be included?
From the Very Beginning
Industry veteran Dan Allison, MS, OTR/L, ATP, can contribute to a wheelchair evaluation from multiple traditional seating and mobility perspectives.
But Allison is also a CDRS — a Certified Driver Rehabilitation Specialist, a credential awarded by the Association for Driver Rehabilitation Specialists (ADED) — who has headed the training department at Shepherd Center’s Adaptive Driving Services Program in Atlanta. And he sees real value in including
adaptive automotive specialists in the wheelchair eval process. Allison said vehicle transportation should “absolutely” be part
of the overall wheelchair accessibility discussion from the very start, just as the client’s home should be assessed to be sure the chosen wheelchair — particularly if the client will be driving a power chair — can maneuver well inside.
Of the transportation assessment, Allison said. “It doesn’t have to trump what goes on in the house [assessment]. I don’t think you have to make [the wheelchair] fit the car. It has to be the best of both worlds. Home is probably first priority, but I sure hope they don’t disregard getting into a vehicle.”
The most common incompatibility, Allison added, is “the dimensions of the wheelchair versus what vehicle they’re going to be using. Some vans have greater door entry heights now; before, it was so sad because a church would buy the van before the person even got the wheelchair, and they’d get the wheelchair, and the wheelchair wouldn’t fit in it.”
Another potential problem even in vehicles with more head- room is the combined height of power chair and user when driving up a ramp into the vehicle. “If they tilt back, they run the
MobilityMgmt.com
MOBILITY MANAGEMENT | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 9
CAR KEY: DEPOSITPHOTOS/LUKATME1