Wheelchair Tips and Tricks

greetings this is Sean your PT guy here our videos help you move better and stay independent so you can enjoy your life in this video we're going to show you some wheelchair Basics that everyone with a wheelchair needs to know about we'll go over the leg rest how to adjust them what to look for we're going to go through the brakes and how to manage those breaks and then also the armrest and finally how to fold up that wheelchair if you need to put it away let's get started disclaimer let's start with the legs and the leg rests anytime you're using a wheelchair you want to make sure that there's not a lot of pressure going through your sit Bones on your bottom that can lead to pressure ulcers and sores and all those things you don't want to do that so if your knees are up like mine are up right now with the leg rests it's putting a lot of pressure on my bottom my sit bones okay if this is my knee The Leverage going down just like my leg here I've got a lot of pressure coming through those sit bones so we don't want to have our knees up too high so we need to make sure that the leg rests are long or lengthened enough so that my my leg bone right here is a little bit more flat that's going to allow the surface of the cushion or the surface I'm sitting on to be dispersed so I'm not putting a lot of pressure there so how do we do that well first you can take off your leg rests you push this little guy right here take this off and show you and on my wheelchair I have these spots right here that is you can push you push it in and you can slide this this leg up and down so I need to make it longer so I'm going to push this button here I'm going to bring it all the way down good and now I'm going to lock it back up these are always a pain you got to take this guy and put these two pieces these two holes on the two pins that are coming up so I'm going to open this guy up like this put it back on and then I'm going to bring it around lock it put the Cav rest down look at that you see that see how my leg is a lot more level with the chair on the surface that's excellent versus this one look at this this one's still way too short so let me fix that one too going to take the leg off I've got my push pins here yours may not have push pins it may actually just have a bolts that you need to do that um to loosen it up and tighten it with okay this is a little Locker mechanism here again I'm going to put my two pins line up my two holes or the two pins down here I'm gonna open up this back here foreign this is always a pain lock it up look at that that is looking much much much better you see how my my thighs my femurs are a lot more straight level with the surface that's what we're looking for now another thing with the leg rests is if you are if you have a leg injury or something you need to have the leg rest elevated or your leg elevated maybe sprained your ankle or you broke your ankle or something you do that with this lever here if you want to just push it up like this that's going to allow it to come up okay and if you want to drop it don't just pull on this lever because then it's gonna crash like that if you're if you did that and your foot was in pain ow okay so don't do that so if you need to raise it up you just bring it up like that and this is that lever that you push down on mine you push down and then that will slowly lower your foot down so like this you can push this lever and just adjust it I'm going to bring it up and my legs are super long so I could even just take this foot rest like this and stick my leg here and now it's elevated no problem much better much much better the other thing you could do that some people like to put a pillow here just to have it a little bit more safe and less pressure on the calf because this calf rest can put a lot of pressure on your on the back of your calf but that's the leg rests let's go now to the brakes let me just lower this guy okay let's go up to the brakes the brakes you always need to make sure your brakes are locked whenever you get up from the chair or get down to the chair if you're standing up you need to lock these brakes okay you lock them by just pushing it forward okay if you you unlock by pulling it back lock here it's gonna you're gonna feel it touch the wheel but that or the yeah the wheel and then what you need to make sure is get that little click at the end that's how you know it's for sure locked and then pull on the rim here and see if the wheel is moving if it's moving at all you have an issue when it's locked because these this bracket it needs to be there's a little socket wrench here a bolt that can be undone and just slid back just a quarter inch and then it'll be able to grip onto the wheel and it won't be moving or such so that's important to know now the other thing that you need to know with the brakes is when you're standing up obviously you need to remove the leg rests okay you swing them out of the way push this pin right in here right in there you just push this guy and that brings it out okay and always make sure you're putting this up so you don't so no one's walking around and clipping it I'm going to push this one bring this up I've got this locked here and this locked Here and Now from here I can stand up and the wheelchair is not moving okay okay I can stand up the wheelchair is not going to slide back because I'm I'm locked here all right I've got a lock here a locked here my brakes are nice and back and sturdy the wheels are not moving the chair is safe I can put my hands here and then I can stand up no problem okay so the leg rests aren't in my way everything's good if I had a walker I could do that all that let's go over to the actually let's go to the armrest next These Arm rests are helpful some of the wheelchairs actually you just pull it and it swings back and then it can come right back and clip into this spot right here this one does not mine does not mine I just have to push this pin here if I push this pin the two posts come out to make it easier for me to do it like a transfer over to a recliner or a couch but how do you do that you push this pin right here and mine it's very tight but this comes off and then what you can do is I could transfer over here a little bit easier if I needed to transfer over easier okay so that's another way to do that so we went through the leg rests we went through the brakes oops can you believe that a physical therapist just put it on backwards I cannot believe that guy all right anyways see physical therapists do the same thing foreign so that's the leg rests the brakes the arm rests how do you get your chair to fold up if you need to put it in the car or something first you need to take off your leg rest you just swing it out with this little lever here okay you swing it out to the side and you pull up okay these two pins these two holes slide into these two pins right here so let me show you again so you've got these two holes right there you pull just straight up pull up and it's out okay so there's one the other one same thing okay now let me show you how to um get the chair folded up it's locked so all I have to do on any wheelchair is just pull the seat the sling the seat that you're sitting on it's called a sling you can pull it straight up and that should fold in half watch so I'm going to pull it up see that and there you go now the wheelchair is locked if I wanted to unlock to wheel it I could do that but make sure it's locked when you get it into the car you got to make sure it's locked when you get it into the car now how do you get it back out how do you push it back down same thing you just push on the frame here you push down like this there you go so there you have it the wheelchair Basics if you found this video helpful be sure to click the like button down below and if you want more videos to help you learn how to move better and stay independent so you can enjoy your life click the Subscribe button down 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Channel: Your PT Guy

Views: 7,541

Keywords: Wheelchair, wheel chair, weel chair, sean waller, sean walker, shane walker, shawn walker, shane waller, dont fall, don't fall, prevent falls, prevent fall, leg rest, legrest, armrest, arm rest

Id: dJG6hsfAyUk

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 27 2022