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Look at this, a
Jacuzzi Hoist!
Producer is Sunrise Medical (Sopur).
Could be difficult to integrate this thing in my bathroom.
Archive for the ‘Technical Aids’ Category
Technical Aids tips and tricks XL
Sunday, July 10th, 2011Jacuzzi Hoist!
Technical Aids Tips and Tricks XXXIX
Saturday, July 9th, 2011Frontpage
Some wheelchair users proudly claim to have a
“standing wheelchair”
paid by their health insurance. This would be so great, you could be standing again in your favourite pub at the bar to have a drink, and you would be able to get a coffee mug from above out of the cupboard without problems.
All this might be correct, but the question is, did the “standing wheelchair” get a medical device number for this ?
Everybody should be clear that coffee mug transportation from the cupboard and “standing elimination” of draught beer in general don’t belong to primary health care, therefore the public health insurance would cover the costs only in exceptional cases.
Furthermore the insurance would have paid already for an everyday wheelchair for sure with which you can also get drunk. So why a second…
I am outing myself, I have such a chair, and it is medically reasonable!!!
But officially it is not a standing wheelchair, but a
Standing chair or Standing exercise device
I repeat again, why should the insurance pay for two wheelchairs…
Everybody knows it, you were lying in bed with the flu for 3 days, and when getting up you see little stars first because you feel dizzy.
After my accident I have looked at the ceiling in hospital for 9 weeks and claim since then that I knew all shades of white.
During 8 months I was buckled up each day for 1 hour on a tilt table and tilted upwards as on a torture rack to permanently stabilise my circulation without additional medication.
Furthermore the standing chair helps to prevent muscle wasting and pressure sores.
After I was home also my tilt table was gone. My circulation was not happy at all with that. Although we para- and quadriplegics are famous for our low blood pressure… with a blood pressure of 42/35 I could still count the drops of my medicine… this was hard. I got a prescription especially for a standing chair, because my blood pressure refused another standing device comparable to a speaker’s desk.
It is incomprehensible, but when using these “standing desks” I felt close to fainting after seconds.
After testing of another device and longer correspondence with my insurance, roundabout a year, which was very fast, I got a
Standing exercise device
l
(ca. 7000€) approved.
Read my blogpost about a handrail (back at the wall) as transfer aid (see older blogpost), from everyday wheelchair to standing chair.
At this point I would like to personally thank all these blithering idiots because of whom the approval of these upscale medical device at the health insurance is understandably so difficult.
If you absolutely want to “stand” at your pub’s bar, buy your standing wheelchair by yourself!!!
Small tip, even if you are not so educated in using a language. In case of non-approval of a medical device by the health insurance consider correct wording and spelling in your objection. Otherwise the correspondence can drag on for years…
I know a case in which the insurance wanted to place an electrical standing wheelchair in re-use which is 10 km/h fast into the living room of a patient in the 1st floor.
This is somehow unusual, but medically absolutely justifiable.
Translator BL
Technical Aids Test Crete Part II
Saturday, July 2nd, 2011Frontpage
Freeway T 40
(I don’t mean the bus.)
The White Mountains of Crete
The place on my right is free…
Freeway T 40, the off roader among the shower commode chairs 
The English shower commode chair “Freeway T 40″, not to confuse it with a Ferrari F 40, is a quite useful medical device. The idea to take a commode chair on the island tour with 4 wheelers from the wheelchair Hotel Eria Resort on Crete is great because wheelchair accessible toilets on Crete are scarce.
If you would like to learn more about this great little hotel, have a look in Facebook or press on the link!
Translator BL
Where are the 70.000 workers at Frankfurt Airport???
Thursday, June 30th, 2011Frontpage
Long “fairytale”, but worth reading!!!
On Saturday I landed exceedingly on time on 22:30 from Chania (Crete) in Frankfurt.
I will never understand why some people are applauding after the landing. Nobody was ever applauding for me when I did my job well. Anyway…
The aircraft was parking on a remote stand, I had as usual a nice window seat and watched very relaxed the totally stressed pedestrians leaving the plane.
As wheelchair user you have the privilege of the last passenger after the landing.
The flight captain stated that he had requested the special lifting bus and adequate members of the ground staff already several times, so that I could leave the plane as well.
But nobody came!!!
Parts of the crew and the pilot provided some company to me with which they apparently had some fun. The unwritten law that the captain is the last to leave the ship is still of great importance at Condor.
Eventually someone from ground staff came and seriously asked me if I could walk. He accurately observed that he could not help me on his own. Insight of the day…
While waiting for the lifting bus the luggage was unloaded, so I asked a crew member to check if my wheelchair and wheelchair tractive Minitrac are waiting on the airfield and hopefully are not loaded on the luggage carts.
He said that this would be the case, the things would be standing there. Uff…
The lifting bus finally arrived around 23:10, I left the aircraft with the help of two strong guys and my beloved plane transit wheelchair.
Afterwards they helped me into my own wheelchair which unlike my Minitrac was fortunately still there.
Anyway, so we had to get my Minitrac at the bulky luggage claim.
With the bus we were not brought as usual to the FraCare Service (Service for handicapped at Frankfurt airport), because this area was already closed at this time, but to a different entrance.
There a friendly employee from FraCare was waiting for me.
She said that our luggage would be in the reconstructed building C, and we would have to see how we get there at this time because some of the elevators were switched off.
She used her phone virtually as GPS and lead us confidently like a bushman in the desert through the corridors of the building.
When we finally arrived at the luggage belt we didn’t have to search our luggage for a long time, our 3 bags were rotating around and around.
The whole baggage claim area was almost deserted, there was not even a luggage thief.
My Minitrac
stood with its 65 kg a little disjointed in a plastic box on the bulky luggage belt!
My wife reassembled the Minitrac to begin with.
It is unbelievable, but at 23:44 nobody responsible was there nor could be reached by telephone, who could lift my little box from the luggage belt.
In the meantime even the last passengers were gone who we could have asked for help.
At last my wife has magically lifted my Minitrac from the luggage belt together with two men whom I just call Mister X and Y here. At this point I would like to thank them and the employee of FraCare again!
I left the terminal at 23:55!!!
My pre-ordered wheelchair taxi was kindly waiting in front of the terminal.
I have sent this “fairy tale” in a slightly modified version to Fraport (operating company of Frankfurt Airport) requesting their comments. I will keep you informed.
To my shame I have to admit that I used to work 9 years at the Frankfurt airport before my accident.
Translator BL
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Technical Aids Testing Crete Part I
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011Frontpage
Ingenious: A cooling vest which only needs water!
My spinal cord has decided in 2007 that sweating is stupid.
Since then my skin is quite dry 
This phenomenon is nothing unusual with para- or quadriplegia.
As a consequence my body temperature rises and rises when it is above 25° C and sun.
This can lead until fainting at approximately 40° C.
A water sprayer for flowers can work miracles (see older blog post), but is not the best solution either.
There are special cooling vests, with thermal packs or fans, well… I think it is too complicated, and you are depending on thermal packs and refrigerators. So I prefer hiding at home and waiting for the winter.
In May I met Sepp Jakober on a technical aids trade fair, the chief engineer of the wheelchair tractive Swisstrac who gave me tuning tips for my Minitrac.
He gave me a vest from the company E-Cooline and said that I would absolutely have to try it. He borrowed it from another booth.
The vest would cool you, you just have to put water on it, the water would not flow out, hard to believe!!!
The vest would absorb the water, virtually sweat and thus cool you.
It was invented for fire fighters.
The cooling vest was working!!!
A quantum leap for quality of live.
I underwent a two-week stress test with the cooling vest in Crete.
The E-Cooline vest is really cooling, ingenious!!!
It doesn’t get wet, the body feeling can be described as cooling-clammy, but it is not unpleasant.
Be careful with filling water in it as 4 liters fit inside, and then you would have to wait approximately 3 days until you are able to wear this “lead vest” again. There is no water dripping off. 0,5 liters are more than enough for approximately 4 hours at 30°C in the shade.
The Cooline vests are available in a simple design with velcro tape, see picture above, or two rows of snap fasteners and additional removable lower part.
From the same material there are scarfs and caps available which I would like to test as well.
I was able to stroll around at the beach promenade with my wife in the afternoons at 30° C in the shade without water sprayer or wet towel.
The cooling vest made a great holiday possible, and I have just ordered a black vest and cap.
The price of approximately 300 € is not low, but if you bear in mind what you have to pay for good winter clothing or trivial cotton jeans I consider the price justifiable for a vest out of such a high tech material.
This vest opens so many possibilities for me, I don’t have to hide any more in summer!!!
The only disadvantage is that the vest weighs around 4 kg after washing and you have to wait 3-4 days until it has dried again.
You can purchase these vests from E-Cooline
Unfortunately these vests don’t have a medical device number. With an adequate prescription and statement from the doctor some health insurances would bear the expenses.
For question as usual: rollinator@eigude.de
With all this verbiage Karl Lagerfeld would probably be proud of me!
PG-13 prohibits to show my “six-pack” stomach!
Translator BL
Wheelchair Tuning Part XXV (Competitor)
Thursday, June 9th, 2011Frontpage
I don’t want to keep the beach wheelchairs back from you 
I think the Sopur wheelchair for children is awesome. A good pusher is a must.
Technical Aids Tips and Tricks XXXVIII
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011
Frontpage
My friend always tells me that I have a static like
Bernd das Brot
(German kids television character, an ill-humoured bread)
Long torso, short arms and short legs.
Therefore the transfer from wheelchair to car belongs – because I can’t stand and the door sills are becoming wider and wider – into the realms of fantasy.
This gap is insurmountable for me. Many wheelers have the same challenge (I have abolished all “problems” years ago, see front page) and use a slide board, with which they glide as elegantly as possible from wheelchair to car seat. To learn this there was once a
brand new car lifted with a tower crane in the 9th floor
of a hospital in Frankfurt which is standing since then in the corridor of the occupational therapy.
The car won’t be stolen for sure!!!
Almost all car customizing companies offer a permanently mounted foldaway slide board, with which one can transfer relatively save to the driver seat.
Why one is dragged at the trouser waistband into a car at rehabilitation fairs and the International Automobile Exhibition (IAA) in Frankfurt, because these “specialist companies” don’t even have a slide board with them, is incomprehensible for me. Usually a mounted slide board should be part of the basic equipment.
Only on demand I got an offer for a foldaway slide board.
Get yourself a
permanently mounted slide board
fitted if you also have difficulties with the transfers.
You can drive with the wheelchair directly to the transfer board.
As you can see perceived 2 kg key chains are normal for me!
Translator BL
Wheelchair Tuning Part XXIV (Competitor)
Friday, May 27th, 2011
Frontpage
Chapeau to the constructor!
12 x 2 Offroad Wheelchair, just cool this vehicle, it is currently for sale, 6,5 HP, 4 km/h, with starter cable.
Of course without inspection of the technical control association.
With this vehicle up to the next street fair… 
Translator BL
Technical Aids for Quadriplegics VIII
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011Frontpage
There are really good technical aids available.
These technical aids are often developed by concerned people, produced in small batches and are in many cases not known by physicians and therapists.
We “Teddies“ (Quadri- or Tetraplegics) often have limited or not any finger function any more.
A companion had a great idea, worked it out until production readiness and distributes this individually adapted gripping aid under the name
Gripability
www.gripability.de
You have a let’s call it gripper adapted to the hand.
This is opened and closed pneumatically by pushing a button with the other arm.
Depending on the handicap there are various different grippers, hand adaptions, etc. etc. etc…
You are able to grip again.
This gripping aid facilitates again independent eating, drinking, writing… ingenious!!
When I was asked I immediately volunteered as test person for new developments. Maybe I can help a little bit.
Look at the homepage and make it known.
Not to be able to walk any more is one thing, but not to be able to grip properly any more is not really great.
Take away the tools from a technician, and he will get them back!!!
The key chain is from the German technical relief organization
Let’s wait and see if I recognize myself in the mirror after the next test series 
Translator BL
Technical Aids Tips and Tricks XXXVII
Monday, May 23rd, 2011Frontpage
On Saturday I was on a “development training” on the rehabilitation fair in Karlsruhe.
I am especially interested to test technical aids.
This is even more fun with prototypes. This
Unicycle front engine Type Slave
is just stuck on the footrest of the wheelchair. A stud bolt is clamped to the footrest before, and off it “goes”. (Only suitable for wheelchairs with rigid-welded frame).
I didn’t reach maximum speed due to my survival instinct. Without anti-tipper on the wheelchair it’s a little tricky…
I don’t consider the name slave as suitable.
The thing is very handy, you can quasi tuck it under your arm, and it is quite light with its approx. 9 kg.
To quickly drive to the bakery without having to transfer to the electric wheelchair it can be rather useful. If you have other ideas for possible applications please write a comment.
You should better be careful that your nephew doesn’t mount the little tractive secretly to his child scooter.
I would have probably done it
Translator BL
The eigth Plague of Mankind
Monday, May 16th, 2011Frontpage
Yesterday it was raining cotton wool
Translator BL
Rollator Part I
Sunday, May 15th, 2011Frontpage
As wheelchair user I have neglected the subject of rollators or walkers a little bit until now. During my journeys through the depth of the internet I have discovered some especially beautiful types:
Parlour Trolley “Push Me!”
Golf Rollator Type “Get the Ball”
Special Edition “Father’s Day”
Skate Rollator “Schuhmacher”
Special Type “Vettel 80″
My Favourite “Sankt Pauli”
Cleany 3000
The parlour trolley is for sale under a different name.
Translator BL
Technical Aids Tips and Tricks XXXVI
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011Frontpage
Everybody who knew me before my accident still remembers that I couldn’t sit quietly for 5 minutes. I am catching up this time now intensively.
The bad thing with a para-/quadriplegia is that often all muscles at the butt are lost.
If some day only the hip bones poke out of the bottom, the butt starts to “ouch” as if you were just driving with the car nonstop from Frankfurt to Rimini.
Cushions for wheelchairs are a science in itself. Starting with a simple piece of rubber foam for cheap 120 €, via shockingly expensive comb cushions which look like a beehive for 600 €, up to inflatable special cushions which looked upon from above remind of a box of chocolate marshmallows.
I am using a comb cushion myself which actually is rather good. I consider the price of 125 € for an adequate seat cover which in my case starts ripping at the corners after 6 months as such a cheek that I have my covers privately mended to avoid charging my health insurance with such exorbitant prices. Everything has its limit, currently my cover has leather on the corners!
As just explained there are endless types of wheelchair cushions…
Why shower commode chairs are only slightly cushioned if at all, is inexplicable for me. After long research I have found an approximately 1,5 cm thick
Gel rest for shower commode chairs
The investment of 143 € is worth each cent.
I am using it daily for meanwhile 6 months now and I am absolutely content.
This shower commode chair is a standard model: Apart from the fact that the brake springs were broken after 2 years and the rear tyres were seized up, the shower water accumulates on two slots on the front tyres. This can only be topped by the fact that water is accumulating in the inside of the frame and can’t drain off, because there is no exit for it.
They should have provided the information that the shower chair is not water resistant!
Translator BL
Technical Aids Tips and Tricks XXXV
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011Frontpage
My daily consumption of various pills against all and everything which partially remind of suppositories in their form is altogether a complete meal.
I enjoy them in the meantime like gummi bears.
The colours are great, but the industry still needs to work a little on the taste.
Michelin-Stars for the most delicious dope, that would be something.
According to the motto: A problem shared is a problem halved, some pills might be halved and quartered.
Luckily my wife takes over the weekly pill destruction.
If I would try this by myself I would have probably gone into the light out of despair (suicidal tendencies).
I have found a
Pill splitter type Apex Ultra
which is really working and has additional protection at the blade.
It is hardly believable but it has a price incl. shipment of less than 10 €!
Source of supply enquiries as usual under rollinator@eigude.de .
Click also on tag “pills”.
Translator BL
Technical Aids Tips and Tricks XXXIV
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011Frontpage
I am attributing the development of this technical aid exclusively to the excessive consumption of the finest high quality medication.
Otherwise this special construction is hardly explicable retrospectively.
With this
Thermo Transport box
which can be fixed around the wheelchair I might get a minijob as pizza boy.
In this box not only the pizza stays hot, but alternatively the beer stays cold as well.
Translator BL
