Unicare navigates aged care seating challenges with allied health partners
Seminar: Effective Seating Solutions for Aged Care
– Residential and Community
Technology Park Function Centre, Bentley
Friday, 31 Mar 2023
- At what point do we consider a scripted wheelchair vs an off-the-shelf wheelchair?
- How do we increase the manoeuvrability of a wheelchair?
- Pull-to-lock vs push-to-lock brakes – What are the clinical considerations?
- When do we need to consider the weight of a power drive?
There was certainly a lot to learn and a lot to teach at our Effective Seating Solutions for Aged Care Seminar.
We were delighted to welcome a seminar room full of occupational therapists and physiotherapists who came knowing how valuable this session would be and how much it would enable them to improve seating outcomes for those they care for.
The Unicare health team is glad to be leading the way with up-to-date seating education and is thankful to those who joined us for the day.
We are also grateful to aged care providers who have identified the significance of this education and made plans for their allied health teams to attend.
Annette Terranova, clinical educator and trainer at Unicare Health, shared a wealth of knowledge and experience with all who were keen on becoming better seating prescribers for aged care.
Annette is a renowned clinical educator and respected occupational therapist who speaks at healthcare events across Australia. She has over 35 years of industry experience and has worked extensively as a clinician and consultant in the aged care sector.
As Clinical Educator and Trainer for Unicare Health, she facilitates product and clinical training for allied health professionals, enabling them to become more proficient equipment prescribers.
This seminar focused on developing effective seating systems to maintain comfort, pressure injury prevention, posture management, and function.
Having recently attended the National Pressure Injury Advisory Conference in San Diego and the Safe Patient Handling Conference in Arizona, Annette had plenty of new information to share and case studies to tell.
Annette discussed the clinical features, use, and application of a wide range of seating equipment, including wheelchairs, power chairs, lift and recline chairs, regency care chairs, and more.
In order to provide better wheelchair seating outcomes, she addressed every component in the wheelchair puzzle and provided a comprehensive overview of headrests, backrests, and cushions features.
Annette compared similar off-the-shelf wheelchairs such as the Breezy Basix, and Ansa Tourer wheelchairs, addressing the differences in their frame, adjustability, seating structure and backrests.
She stressed how important it is to understand these clinical features when prescribing seating structures.
Legrests what and why? she asks!
Angle of footplate – when is this significant?
Elevating leg rests – what to do when calf supports are not suitable?
Attendees were seen taking notes and listening intently throughout the session.
Annette gave her presentation about the importance of providing accurate measurements to suppliers and taught attendees how to measure properly when scripting a seating system.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves as they practised taking measurements off one another.
To facilitate discussions, Annette presented a custom SR45 wheelchair developed by Unicare in collaboration with a local hospital to meet the needs of a ward wheelchair and infection control requirements. She talked about the challenges this hospital was facing with their fleet of tilt-in-space wheelchairs and how this solution was developed to address those challenges.
Everyone who knows Annette, knows how much she appreciates the Regency Chair for its pressure care features and infinite positioning possibilities.
As one of the most used pieces of equipment in aged care, Annette encouraged therapists to understand the pressure care technology inside a Regency care chair.
“The Regency Chair provides an infinite number of positioning options as well as a gel sack that relieves pressure areas in the seating structure. Consider the differences when comparing equipment and be mindful of your client’s long-term needs.”
She taught everyone how to use the functions of a Regency Care Chair to achieve good seating and positioning and reduce manual handling.
Annette demonstrated how to use the Regency Sertain Electric XL Care Chair‘s electric features, such as power backrest recline, seat tilt, leg rest adjustment, and hi-lo seat function, to reduce manual handling tasks and improve caregiver safety.
“Think about how these power functions could be significant when caring for your larger clients.”
Ending with a passionate pressure care cushion presentation, Annette discussed the various types of pressure-relieving seat cushions and their clinical features in detail, emphasising the importance of positioning them correctly and in their intended position.
She discussed the differences and applications of foam, dry-polymer, and fluidised gel cushions by examining a range of seat cushions such as the Ansa Alova, Action Pilot Gel, Equagel and more.
She showed the audience how JAY cushions, such as the Jay Union and Jay 2 Deep Contour and Jay Fusion, are made to provide better stability and pressure care.
She discussed the technologies found inside a range of JAY cushions and demonstrated how they differed in terms of pressure relief and positioning.
“JAY has put a lot of thought and innovation into the development of their cushions covers. The materials used allow for proper immersion and prevent the increase in pressure resulting from shearing. It also has moisture-wicking properties so that users stay dry and comfortable. This also prevents the foam base from moisture build-up.”
She spoke about setting up and using ROHO cushions and introduced Permobil‘s ROHO Hybrid Select Cushion which combines the positioning capability of a contoured foam base and air-filled cells for gold-standard offloading of pressure areas.
Everyone enjoyed an insightful time at the seminar, discussing seating strategies and learning how to prescribe seating solutions to support our ageing population effectively.
Thank you
Unicare Health would like to thank everyone who took the time to learn about aged care seating with us and for the awesome feedback you have returned.
As the leading equipment provider to hospitals, aged care, disability and community providers across the state, we are fortunate to be working in partnership with major healthcare providers in an endeavour to improve the way seating is prescribed.
We unicare about bringing updated seating knowledge to this seminar every year and appreciate your continued support and partnership that has made this another winning Unicare training event.
Don’t forget to explore the ATSA Expo’s seminar program for more seating education.
