Wheelchair Service Delivery Training: Intermediate

The aim of Rehab Skills Lab’s courses is to provide healthcare professionals with the skills and knowledge to provide comprehensive wheelchair services based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) Guidelines for the Provision of Manual Wheelchairs in Less-Resourced Settings and the WHO Wheelchair Service Training Packages.

The biggest percentage of wheelchair users requires intermediate level seating services. Intermediate level knowledge and skills must be built on a strong foundation of basic level knowledge and skills.

The Intermediate Professional wheelchair service delivery course teaches participants how to assess for, prescribe and fit wheelchairs and posture support devices (PSDs) to users who require support to sit upright.

Intermediate wheelchair users are users:

• Who need support to sit upright and balanced
• Who are at risk of developing postural deviations
• Whose postures are flexible to neutral, flexible partway to neutral or fixed. The loss of joint range is usually about 25% or less of normal joint range.

The learning objectives of the course will help you:

Understand children’s posture and developmental biomechanics, including key differences to neutral adult postures and biomechanics;

• Become comfortable with the twenty-four-hour management approach as a wheelchair service strategy;
• Assess for, prescribe and fit posture support devices appropriate to a user’s postural support needs including: back support systems, head rests, tray tables, straps and other forms of postural support;
• To be familiar with different types of posture support wheelchairs and motorised wheelchairs; and
• Gain an understanding of different types of high risk pressure care cushions (fluid (gel) and air).

Methodology

An interactive five-day course that includes:

• Theory;
• Practical sessions; and
• Clinical work with wheelchair users.

Entry requirements

• Completion of basic course

CPD points: 37 general