Quadrilateral Lengthening with Dr. Paley

The pain when i wake up is excruciating.  Other than that it's fantastic.

Quote from: Penguinn on November 23, 2015, 11:55:11 PM$2000 for a chair! God damn.

There are cheaper ones. I went with one of the more expensive ones because of shipping time and features. The one I have has a long battery life. During day-to-day use, I only recharge maybe once every 2-3 weeks. It has a 10 hour battery life with a 3 mph speed limit. So that's about 30 miles in one charge.

This is the one I use:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EBXBC4K/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00EBXBC4K&linkCode=as2&tag=lilefo-20&linkId=UBS36HE3JSS7JULD

It's the cheapest I can find for the foldable electric wheelchair. All of them seem to be built similarly from China, so I doubt that it matters which brand you buy. But this one was the cheapest version of it that I could find.

Although it comes with a small mesh basket underneath it, it doesn't have any cup holders, which is a necessity if the cup has no secured lid. This is the cup holder I have on mine:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001YJGDY8/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001YJGDY8&linkCode=as2&tag=lilefo-20&linkId=2DQBYR6JXP35K2TB

Here's one that's $1400 that I saw someone else use. It needs to be disassembled to fit in a trunk, but it says that it's easy to disassemble. I asked that person how she liked it, and she said it worked great. It also has a 10 hour battery life.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N501YSE/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00N501YSE&linkCode=as2&tag=lilefo-20&linkId=P5WGG54NGU4C2BMO

The above two ones are very small and have 360 motion. That's what I like about them. You can go almost anywhere a normal person can go without much trouble - except for stairs. The ones that I don't like are the ones where you have to back-up to make a 180 turn. It's very annoying in narrow aisles and hallways. And the loud beeping noises when you reverse is annoying. The ones above don't have annoying beeping noises.

Here's a $670 one that's requires disassembling to fit in the trunk and isn't as narrow and nimble as the other two:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GPGKN4G/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00GPGKN4G&linkCode=as2&tag=lilefo-20&linkId=WNAUTYRO7VMGPTW5

Anyway, I wish I knew about these electric wheelchairs sooner, because I use them every day and they work great. Just freeing up one hand while moving in a wheelchair is a game changer, especially for doors that don't open by themselves. My standard wheelchair gets almost no use from me now.

Quote from: Iamready on November 24, 2015, 02:30:20 AMAfter seeing the video of this wheelchair it's going to help me with all the taxi trips to the hospital and back with that convenient folding ability.

If you do end up getting the same chair I bought, here's some tips I learned for the past few months of using it: It doesn't fold and unfold that easily for newbies, so you have to teach them how to do it. You basically just have to tell them rotate the arms rests back, and to push the two black tabs in the back together to unlock the chair and make it foldable. When you unfold it, you just pull it apart without pushing any tabs or anything. Sometimes the smaller gray wheel gets stuck on the wheelchair while folded and prevents the wheelchair from unfolding. This confused a few of my taxi drivers. To fix it, you just have to move the grey wheel so that it is parallel to the chair. If it's slightly tilted, it might block the chair from unfolding.

it's coming.  next week

Is there a way to keep people from stealing it?  They leave our wheelchairs in the waiting room during PT and someone might like it too much and ride off with it.  How did you deal with that?  Take the battery out?

Quote from: Iamready on November 24, 2015, 08:55:25 PMIs there a way to keep people from stealing it?  They leave our wheelchairs in the waiting room during PT and someone might like it too much and ride off with it.  How did you deal with that?  Take the battery out?

People generally don't steal other people's wheelchairs. I've left a few things in that PT waiting room that's never been stolen before. There's security cameras in that building, and stealing a wheelchair from a handicap person would be a new low for any criminal. But if you want to be careful, I'd say that the battery is the most expensive part of the chair that's removable. There are two sticks of batteries on either side of the chair, and they can be easily removed. Only issue is that the batteries are pretty heavy so it's not like something you can just sling onto a backpack and walk. The easiest way to disable the chair and prevent it from being used is to just take out the joystick controller. It's really light and detachable.

Oh, and some more tips: Don't keep your feet and toes in front of the foot rest when you're close to a wall. There have been a few times when I've squished my toes between the foot rest and some wall, and it hurt a lot - like closing a door on your toe. In general, try not to drive so close to a wall, like in cases of elevators.

Also, the walker they give you isn't easy to carry around with the electric wheelchair. Instead, I have these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005I5OP6M/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005I5OP6M&linkCode=as2&tag=lilefo-20&linkId=U52XE3CULK7MI537

I was reluctant to use these crutches because I was scared of falling over, but after using these, I don't use the walker anymore. They're much lighter than the walker (a few ounces vs 9 lbs), and they fit underneath the smart chair. I can't go up and down stairs with the walker, but I can with crutches. Also, I move a bit faster with these crutches than the walker. By putting these crutches underneath my wheelchair, they also act as bumpers to keep myself from hitting the wall with my feet, since the crutches protrude out further than your feet do.

thanks . pt always emphasizes that we keep our legs straight out instead of bended for a hamstring stretch.  is this possible with the wheelchair?

Quote from: Iamready on November 25, 2015, 03:23:10 AMthanks . pt always emphasizes that we keep our legs straight out instead of bended for a hamstring stretch.  is this possible with the wheelchair?

Unfortunately no. I usually rest my legs on a table or chair when I need to keep them straight. I wouldn't recommend sitting on the wheelchair for long periods of time if you don't have a place to straighten out your legs. Usually you can rest your legs on the chairs inside or outside the PT waiting room and on the chairs in the dining hall if you're still at Homewood. Sometimes I rest my legs on one of the bars in the walker if I can't find a chair.

good one.  bars of the walker it is.

Ok so I was able to rent the wheelchair in Miami for the week.  There is a big design flaw.  Do you have the version with the grey wheels or the black wheels?  After closing up the wheel chair it takes way too much force to open itback up because the rims of the bulkier new grey wheels gets caught on the bottom frame of the chair and requires potentially damaging the battery casing and the frame of the chair.  I'm guessing you have the older version with black wheels because when we tried that there were no issues closing and opening the chair.  I simply can't drop this  much money on something with such a poor design error.  We had the owner of the shop open up another wheelchair and it had the same issue so it wasn't because of a single chair defect.  Other than that the chair is fine but I might have to go with a more expensive one that is a bit better built.