Using Specialist Seating for the First Time: A Supportive Guide

Using specialist seating for the first time can be a daunting experience, particularly for users who may have previously led an active lifestyle.

If you are considering using specialist seating such as a riser recliner or care chair for the first time, there is no need to feel this way. The whole purpose of specialist seating is to improve your quality of life, and increase rather than reduce independence.

In this article, we help address some of the common concerns first-time users of specialist seating have, and remove some of the misconceptions around this subject.

Jump straight to…

• • Adapting to New Circumstances
  • The Value of an Occupational Therapist
  • Start With a Seating Assessment
  • Enabling Independence and Removing Barriers
  • Conclusion
  • FAQs

Adapting to New Circumstances

Everyone’s story is different, and some may have previously led active lifestyles that have been changed due to an injury or medical condition that restricts their movement in some way.

This could be from a range of medical issues, such as brain injury, surgery or neurological diseases like MS, Huntington’s, MND, or stroke.

Conditions like these contracted later in life means that the person will need to adapt to a lifestyle and routine that may look different to what they knew previously. This can be frustrating for them and cause difficult emotions such as sadness, anger or denial. Your consultant or healthcare advisor will be well aware of this and can support you through it, referring you to psychological support services if required.

Specialist seating is just one of the changes you may experience to your daily life from an illness. At first, people may be reluctant to use a ‘special chair’, as they feel it is a symbol of their illness or physical condition. Our experienced seating assessors are very familiar with the difficulties client face adapting to these changes, and can help you realise that rather than being limiting, our chairs are designed to enable you and give you more comfort and independence.

The Value of an Occupational Therapist

If you have experienced a life-change injury or illness, we cannot overstate the value that an Occupational Therapist (OT) can bring to your journey moving forwards.

Occupational Therapy is an allied health profession that helps people with daily living activities, so they can continue to live independent and fulfilled lives. This is very wide-ranging, from self-care to productivity and leisure activities, and OTs work in hospitals, care homes, or people’s homes in the community.

When our occupations and activities are affected by illness or changes in our body, this can affect our sense of self and how we engage with the world around us. This is where occupational therapy comes in, as an OT helps you engage in activities that bring you value and meaning, bringing purpose back into people’s lives who may feel lonely, isolated or depressed due to factors relating to their illness.

Seating is just one aspect of these adaptations, and we have worked with OTs since our company was founded in 1972, building up strong relationships within the OT community and developing a deep understanding of the role our seating plays in the wider context of Occupational Therapy.

Start With a Seating Assessment

Through our vast experience of carrying out joint assessments with OTs, we have curated our own seating assessment process that starts with the client’s goals and aspirations, and captures all the relevant aspects of their condition to find the right chair for their needs.

You can download our Guide to Specialist Seating Assessments, which looks from the initial seating assessment right through to specification and using your new chair.

As seating specialists, our philosophy is to bring comfort to all of our clients, as this is the final measure of our success. In terms of the patient journey, we see this story played out so many times.

These are some of the commons scenarios we see in our work, and the transformation that seating can bring about.

From Pain to Comfort

Pain is a subjective issue and can show up in many ways for different people. Idiopathic or chronic pain can’t be resolved by seating alone, but can help to alleviate it.

Two specific causes of pain and discomfort that seating can resolve are:

Skin pressure

Sitting in one position for a long time can build up pressure on certain areas of the skin, particularly around bony prominences (e.g. heels, elbows, buttocks, back of head). This can show up with pain initially, but worse still can lead to pressure sores developing from skin breakdown, causing damage to the skin and underlying tissues if not treated.

All our seating assessments aim to remove and prevent pressure build-up, firstly through the right sized chair, but with other pressure relieving features such as tilt-in-space, fabrics and cushioning.

Poor posture

Postural problems are directly linked to pressure, and are mostly a function of unsuitable seating. Getting the posture balanced and aligned is one of the transformative effects of specialist seating.

Seeing someone who has been sitting uncomfortably for a long time experience the bliss of comfort in a new chair is what makes our job so rewarding!

From Isolation to Social Engagement

Being unable to move around and stuck in the same room for days brings social isolation. Not being able to get outside, meet family or friends or interact with other care home residents can all contribute to feelings of loneliness and low mood which ultimately impacts overall levels of wellness.

This is one of the aspects covered by our seating assessment guide, and if a client has been bedbound or confined to their chair, one of our aims is to help mobilise them as much as possible with wheeled chairs that can be easily moved from room to room and adapted to different environments.

The Lento Care Chair, for example, supports the client’s posture from head to toe, so they can use it for resting and watching TV, as well as being wheeled into the day room or dining area for eating and interacting with other residents.

Bariatric needs

This same isolation can be experienced by bariatric users who may struggle to move independently because of their weight, or not engage socially due to negative perceptions relating to their condition. We recognise that obesity can be a condition related to past trauma or other health complications, from diabetes to psychological issues.

We have a bariatric riser recliner and care chair in our Lento range, specified depending on the level of need, which can support the unique postural needs of bariatric patients up to 50 stone, as well as helping them transfer safely and receive personal care.

Lento Bariatric Rise and Recline Chair

Enabling Independence and Removing Barriers

Some may see a specialist chair as a symbol of disability, and be resistant to buying one. We completely understand why clients may feel this way, but want to reassure them and their families that specialist seating is anything but disabling, it’s about enabling them to overcome barriers to independence so they can live their lives as fully as possible.

In fact, we have designed our Lento chairs to look as non-clinical as possible, using sleek, seamless upholstery and a range of rich colour tones to bring a luxury feel to our chairs.

Our ultimate aim in seating is comfort, and although there are many clinical aspects to seating, we want to avoid any clinical association as much as possible, so our clients see their chair as an enabling tool in their life that brings them daily comfort and support.

Conclusion

Using specialist seating for the first time can take some adjustment, but the right chair can make a meaningful difference to comfort, posture and independence.

With support from an occupational therapist and experienced seating assessor, you can find a seating solution that meets your needs and fits your lifestyle.

At Vivid Care, our aim is to make specialist seating an enabling tool that helps people live more comfortably, confidently and independently.