3 ms·
"I think you might be overemphasizing "off road."" I'm pretty sure that term was used by the developers of this chair, so I'll defer to their definition of tha
by oblib 8y ago
"I think you might be overemphasizing "off road.""
I'm pretty sure that term was used by the developers of this chair, so I'll defer to their definition of that, but I think you are unaware of what quadriplegics consider "off road" and "beaches and broken footpaths" qualify for them.
They have a much different view of these kinds of adaptive devices, which is why I mentioned I had "listened" to a lot of them.
For you and I, leaning forward and back, or side to side, isn't even given a thought. They simply cannot do that like us, they have very limited upper body muscle control and pretty much no lower body muscle control
We grab that joystick and control it with our hand and fingers. They have very little dexterity in their hands and arms. They move their hand and arm mostly with their upper body to position it on the joystick, and move the joystick with very subtle shifts in the upper body and arm, and almost not at all with their fingers.
So, really, this chair requires a greater deal of upper body control to operate. I can imagine many quads could learn how to control it with practice, but my experience is it's unlikely they'd feel as safe in it first shot out of the box.
Another, very important, aspect we (the fully able bodied) have to consider is that most quads have suffered a severe accident of some kind that put them in a chair. That's some traumatic stuff to go through. After that they've spent a good deal of time in rehab just to get to the point where they can use a powered wheelchair.
After going through all that telling them "Hey, you can zoom around on footpaths and the beach in this!" makes them cringe.