Chris' Blog: Product Evaluations

V-Trak Back

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:54:29 GMT

A few years ago ROHO developed a back that was a very adjustable back that could meet the needs of a wide variety of customers. For some reason you don't see or hear about that back and I was so glad to see the V-Trak back last year at ISS in Orlando. Fred Rhodes at Performance HealthCare Products is working with the manufactures and is the US distributor for the V-Trak back. This back is an awesome product that has replaced a molded back in alot of cases. The V-Trak is one of the most adjustable backs that have hot the market in a long time.

The unique mounting hardware that amounts the back tothe wheelchair allows the back to be adjusted forward, backward, at a posterior or anterior angle, allows the bottom pad to be adjusted sperate from the middle or top pad, allows for lateral supports and head rest and is all light weight and very easy to remove. This is a back that any therapist can adjust with basic tolls elimanting the need for you to make additional service calls for basic adjustments.

This V-Trak is coded as a custom contoured back and the discount allows for a good profit margin. Fred keeps all of the pad sizes and componets in stock and ship in a couple of days not weeks. Fred and his team provide excellent product training, good literature and DVD's for product demo's and training. The V-Trak will meet more of your customer positioning requirements and increase successful outcomes. I always wondered why wheelchair backs are basicly straight up and down and have no curve that follows the natural curves of the spine. There are many backs such as the biangular back, foam in place and custom molded backs that provide increased support verses tha standard back. The V-Trak back has allowed for increased positioning that provides a better fit for the client, increased postural alignment and decreased back pain.

I give the V-Trak back and Performance Healthcare Products and A + with this back. If you have questions or would like more information on the V-Trak back call fred Rhodes at 770-632-1755 and tell him Chris sent you or visit them on the web at www.php-usa.com.

Chris

Consumer Power Base

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:03:55 GMT

I have to give Pride an Atta Boy. The Select line of consumer power bases they have work great. I have many older customers that only require basic assistance in their homes and the Pride Select and Select 6 work out wonderfully for them. This compact base looks great, works great and I am getting no negative feedback from customer about these chairs. Pride spent some time working on this base to ensure when it was released it would be a quality product, at a price that every dealer could work with.

We have had fewer service calls on this product than on any other consumer power base we have sold. The electronics could use a little upgrade for some customer who need a little more programming than this chair offers. When I sell a consumer power base I consider alot of factors, age, diagnoisis, home environment, ADL's, transportation and tremor conditions. Some older folks need a consumer power base but a little more programming due to tremors and response. I find it very hard to sell a high end base to a customer that is 89 years old, hardly ever leaves their home but has some increased tremors. Tremor dampening is not justification to sell a high end chair to this type of customer.

I recently recieved a call from a RTS wondering why Medicare denied the powered seat functions for a customer. He told all the DX's and medical history and what documentation he had and what a beautiful letter the therapist had written. The only question I had after he finished was what is the customers age, he said 89. Medicare approved the base and cushion and back but denied the tilt, reclineand power elr's. This customer had all the qualifing DX's but at 89 I can understand why Medicare denied the powered seat functions. We have to sometimes put our selves in the shoes of the funding source. Just because the customer has Medicare or Medicaid doesn't mean we sell what you think you can get paid for, use common sense. If you were the funding source would you pay for this? I wouldn't, lets be honest there are those times we might but age has to be a consideration. It is with other types of Medical equipment.

Now back to the Select, Pride you've done a great job with this product. The only advice I have is offer an upgraded electronics package for those customer who have severe tremors but only require a consumer power base.

Chris

Crossfire Ergo Manual Wheelchair

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:59:48 GMT

I recently had the opprotunity to work with a customer and order an Invacare Croosfire rigid frame manual wheelchair with the Ergo seat. This customer has been in a manual wheelchair for 43 years and was using a Quickie 2 folding frame manual wheelchair. Customer has moderate scoliosis and wears a clam sheel bracefor additional support, sits in a severe posterior pelvic tile and has one shoulder higher than the other. Customer is in extremely good health due to his healthy eating habits. He was spending 10 to 14 hours a day in his Quickie 2 prior to retiring. He recently retired due to severe edema in bilateral lower extremities and has a history of DVT and superfical blood clot secondary to transfer injuries.

I was ask to come to seating clinic to see this customer and determine what we could do to reduce edema, increase the amount of time he was able to be up in a chair and provide better postural alignment. We performed a mat eval, home and environment evaluation and the transportation evaluation. After all the evaluation process was complete we were able to recmmend the Crossfire with Ergo seat. Customer was going to continue to use a High Profile ROHO cushion. The chair was spec'ed out and ordered in. After som basic modification, trial run was performed allowing customer to use the chair in his environment. Customer instanntly sat in a more upright postural alignment and noticed increase in function. The new chair with the ergo seat provide a midline alignment with out any type of positioning aides. We also noticed that his scoliosis was not near as pronounced as it was in the old chair. Customernoticed that he was able to see the individuals he was interacting with better, was able to see into the pots and skillets when cooking, able to reach things with increased control and was able to sit up for longer periods of time.

Over the next couple of weeks he notices a reduction in the amount of edema after sitting up for almost 11 hours in the chair. He noticed a positive change in bowl function. He also noticed that he reguired less energy to operate the chair and was less fatigued at night. He has the ability to transfer in and out of bed without banging his lower extremities on the chair decreasing the risk of furture blood clots.

The Invacare Crossfire with Ergo seat is anexcellent chair and has performed above and beyond our expectations. I give the Invacare Crossfire with Ergo seat an A +. This chair has taken the ultralight weight manual wheelchair to a whole new level and provides postural alignment without additional positioning aides. Other manual wheelchair manufactures should take notice. This chair will provide increase seating tolerances, reduce the percentages of positional scoliosis and increased quality of life for manual wheelchair users. If you are looking for a new ultralight weight manual wheelchair, check out the Crossfire with Ergo seat. Great Job Invacare.

Chris

Balder

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:06:32 GMT

First let me apologize for not getting any entries completed over the last few days. Now on with the product eval. I had the opprotunity at last years ISS in Orlando to evaluate the Balder Power Wheelchair manufactured by ETAC. This is an awesome chair that offers a wide variety of power seat functions from seat elevator, recline, tilt, standing frame and power elevating legrest. The Balder chair is a front wheel drive chair that is like no other chair I have seen in recent times. You can tell that ETAC took the time to talk to customers, therapist and rehab dealers when they designed and manufactured this chair. This chair has a seat elevator that is mounted on a pivot arm and elevates from the rear of the base. This elevator allows the customer to raise themselves up to reach things out of a cabinet, carry on a conversations with someone else, see over the counter to talk to the bank teller and do many other activities that the standard elevator will not allow them to do. The electronics on the chair are cleaner looking than any other chair I have seen in recent times. Balder has kept the wiring on the chair compact, clean and easy for a tech to work on. The shroud comes off very easy allow for quick access to the batteries and other componets.

The standing frame of this chair is like none that I have seen in recent years. We recently performed a detailed standing evaluation using the Balder chair. Customer is a female who currently uses a Permobil power wheelchair with elevator, tilt, recline and power legrest. She has been unable to stand using a free standing standing frame for over a year. We recently tried an Easy Stand stander but was unable to get to a full standing position due to the time required to get into the standing and them she started to feel light headed and have a drop in blood pressure. The standing frame was left at the rehab unti for her and the therapist to work with. After a period of time we realized the regular standing frame was not going to work. The other issue with the standard standing frame was her inability to transfer in and out independently or safely. The Balder power wheelchair was brought in forevaluation because this chair offers all the powered seat function she requires and also has a standing frame. After some minor adjustments to the chair she was giving a basic overview of the chair and she was turned loose. The chair performed extremely well and she was ready to stand. We discussed what we were going to do and who was going to do what incase we experienced a sudden drop in blood pressure. She took over the controls and went directly from a sitting position to a standing position with no drop in blood pressure. She was able to stand and drive the chair without any assistance. We let her keep the chair for 2 days to try the chair in her environment and make a list of issue and go for her face to face in the chair. She goes for outpatient PT in the same building as her physician. She arrived a little early for her appointment and made a bee line to her therapist and showed him how she could stand in the chair. He gave the chair high marks and said this is exactly what we have been looking for. The physician performing the evaluation gave a thumbs up to the chair, laid out a deatiled standing schedule and wants to see more folks in this type of chair. We all know the benefits of standing and the stability of a front wheel drive power base.

My tech and I spent alot of time going through this chair front to back and top to bottom. We talked to Balder customer service, our local rep and have been very impressed with this chair. We also comapred this chair to a similiar chair manufactured by Permobil and the Balder beats the Permobil hands down. After further evaluation we rate this chair an A due to over all performance, product desing, stability, easy to work on, customer service and outside sales representation. For more information on the Balder power wheelchairs, send me an email at chrisb@mymobilitymatters.com and we will get you in touch with a Balder rep in your area.

Sunrise Medical

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:25:35 GMT

Well this is a first, 3 blog entries on one day. Well I had a moment this evening to evaluate some of Sunrise Medicals products and servicesand the evaluation is not good. I placed a call to Sunrise and asked some basic questions on a couple products trying to determine what product to do. I must have gotten the newest employee in their customer service department because I didn't get answers to my questions and as a result didn't spec out a Sunrise Product. When looking at the order forms and website I had a hard time figuring out if I was looking at wheelchair information or a dance card. Let's see, they have rythum, groove and not sure what else but I wasn't sure if I was suppose to dance or spec out a chair. The other reason I did not choose a Sunrise products was outside customer service from their reps. I haven't seen an outside rep in over a year and not sure at this point who our rep is. One factor for most dealers when recommending a product to a customer is their outside rep for a particular manufacture. If we don't have good representation from that manufacture, I have a hard time recommending their product. When there is a problem or we need something our outside rep is who we go to for help, to get a evaluation chair or a loaner if their product fails when trying to get a customers chair repaired. I sell many add on products from manufactures with no out reps but have a hard time selling a power base or high end manual base from a company with no outside rep. I have brought this issue up to Sunrise many times and get no feed back, get a quick visit from a rep or a phone call but then no follow up. The products we have ordered from Sunrise have all failed and just don't live up to the claims Sunrise makes about their products. I give Sunrise an F for products quality, customer service, representation and on going support to the customer. Sunrise has alot of work to do to once again become a major player in our industry. They recently purchased a number of well respected companies in our industry but I have noticed they service from those companies have slacked off as well. I haven't seen a ATR rep in forever either. Sunrise wake up and smell the coffee. Other manufactures are passing you by. The Quickie name use to be know by everyone in the industry and now it's know for well, I'm not sure. Tomorrow I will teach my assistive technology course at an areas technology school and won't mention Sunrise in any of my product demo's and trainings. From where they use to be to where they are now, its sad.

If you would like to respond to this evaulation, please use the comment section. Your feed back is appreciated.

Chris

Product Evaluation

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:07:41 GMT

Well I've discussed Motion and pride powered seating so I will move on to Invacare. Invacare has always had some of the most reliable and dependeable products in the industry. They spend alot of time focused on quality control and ensure thety have a product that is going to be very reliable for the customer. Invacare recently has taken alot of Motion Concepts technology to strengthen their products. They have a tilt interface that you can now purchase directly from Invacare. Motion developed the tilt interface a few years back and it is a product that meets a particular need in the industry. Now that you can purchase the product direct from Invacare for an Invacare products means alot to me the dealer. This better insures that I get everything I am going to need when converting a standard ASBA seat to a tilt in the field.

A number of years ago Invacare have some very complex powered seat functions that worked really well but you have to be a rocket machanic to repair them. Then in order to sell them you had to have special training and do this and do that. Well those days are over. The Formula seating product Invacare brought to market some years ago is an excellent product, priced right so the dealer can make money and they like the Motion product are very reliable, dependable and easy to work on.When you call Invacare customer service their customer service are very knowledgeable about their product. They can tell you if you can do this or do that to modify the system so it will meet your customers needs. The one issue I do have with Invacare is when you want them to do something special, you have to go through an act of Congress and get a part number that is a mile long. This is one of the reason's I perfer Motion when I need something special. Over all Invacare get's an A for their products. They make the grade for reliability, dependability and price. For more information on the Invacare brand of products, go to www.invacare.com

If you have a particular productyou would like discussed, drop me an email at chrisb@mymobilitymatters.com or just add your comments to the blog.

Chris