All right, hi folks I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist, Brad Heineck physical therapist
Together we are the most famous physical therapists on the internet in our opinion of course Bob
Today Brad, we're going to talk about five steps to adjust your wheelchair brakes to prevent falls with the wheelchair
This is obviously not something to be taken lightly, if your brakes aren't holding when you get up
You could fall or when you sit down you could fall, right exactly and one of the things that we always
Tell the people we work with in wheelchairs if they have them in them or before especially is remember
To lock your brakes and push them all the way forward, so they're locked in so that when they stand up
He's getting a little old for these pratfalls and one of these days
We're gonna have to have a video on how to repair an acute broken hip, my wife gets excited about that too
But you see what happened was I actually locked a brake, but the brake got out of adjustment so even though it's locked
it's not holding, it's not functioning so we're gonna
go through this, adjust the brake and get it even better than what you had it with a little adapter
That's we're gonna show, so before we start that though Brad if you are new to our Channel
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I think it's working Bob. I'm feeling better every day, all right good. Good for you Brad
Let's go ahead and get started
Typically, this is a
Standard type wheelchair probably the majority of your custom ones are going to have brakes similar to this
So the brake slides forward or back is that right? Right and typically they're mounted on one of the frame bars
Like this is so common
on so many of them, but what you're going to need to do, if someone's in the chair
You can adjust them while someone's in the chair and the chair is upright
But it is hard to do, get the person off the chair into bed or another chair and
Just simply
Tip the chair over like this
Get yourself a stool like this
I'm starting to see why you should have the patient out of the chair first, that probably wouldn't be a good thing would it
Yeah, look at that. We've got the cushion in there, and I can push that over here
Can you zoom in and see what we're what we got here Lonnie? Lonnie's doing her best
Okay, so here the adjuster and
When you go all the way forward like this you can see
It's not holding the brake at all now one key thing you really want to do it that makes your life a lot easier is
take a magic marker or a Sharpie and mark right here
So you know where it is right now because
What will happen is when you loosen this up, and it slides up and down
And then you don't remember where it was and it's just not near as efficient
It saves time, makes life easy. I've done this, so I know what he's talking about, sometimes luckily
There's a mark where it was right cuz it's so wore out
Exactly. No that's a very good suggestion and
if you can get yourself a
socket with the proper size
really helps
Almost all of them back here where you cannot see, well we can tip it this way, right here
We've got the nut, you need to get on that to loosen that up, and I'll do it here on this side
And we'll loosen this up
And you can see now you got plenty loose, and this is where like if it drops down
And you don't remember where it is. Right where was my starting point? Yeah, and so I knew before
When I locked it in it was just about touching so I went probably having a quarter-inch of pressure
on there it's kind of a guess, so I'm gonna move it forward, so a 1/4 inch closer
yeah, let's see what happens and
We're gonna tighten her up
There we go. There really is no better way than trial and error
And here look at that, still too loose. Yep we're still doing nothing so we're gonna go a little further
You may not know this but Brad is actually quite mechanical. What was your background again Brad? I used to
repair and fix
electromechanical equipment, electric motors gearboxes
transformers and
Did that for 10 years, that was before he was a therapist, so really quite amazing
Now this is something that works out well, now listen if you get to the point where it goes a little click on there
That's usually a good sign
And now it's locked in nice, if you go too far
you can actually bend and twist
Well if you go too far too a lot of people have trouble applying the brakes, especially without the help
So be careful not to go too tight, the other thing, now these are gonna
be hard to see there are little bolts here that has the linkage to hook up and
Sometimes those bolts get loose and you'll see there's gaps in here and everything's just sloppy
Then you're gonna want to
Take your wrench, and when you do that
Let's do it this way you're gonna have to do each one
Does that got like a lock nut on there?
Yeah, it's got a lock knot on the back. So you need a wrench.
I don't have a box in wrench, so I'm just gonna use
An adjustable wrench and then I'm gonna go twisty twisty twisty
now these ones are usually not very tight because they've got you know a little lock nut on there that has a nylon nut and
It doesn't take a lot to overcome that, oh there we go, yeah two of them so far in this one
There's four of them. Yep
Now yeah now she's tight. Yeah, maybe a little too tight but
Don't forget about the little drop of oil and the rag because you drip your oil on there
Cuz you only need a couple drops, but sometimes more comes out than you want, then it drips on the floor
And then you have nothing but another fall hazard, and then people get upset with you as well.
We're just gonna drip this on
One drippy drippy there. Let it go down where it belongs don't let it get on the floor
I'm glad you're using the professional vernacular drippy drippy
Vernacular Bob, you've been studying! I pulled out a big word for today. You want to be an English major don't you?
I just want to get the words out Brad
I don't wanna worry about being a major. There we go. Look how easy that goes but yet it is really tight
Yeah, it is, so the oil really did make a difference didn't it?
The oil is you know, a little drop here a little drop there, this really makes the person in the wheelchair happy
I'm gonna do this one right Bob. I'm just gonna back it off a little bit
There and I'm gonna come up a little bit
There that's what I want right there
Now oh, it's, try it Bob
Yeah, I can see that, I can apply it real easy, but yes
It's holding really well, now if you really want the deluxe treatment everyone out there in YouTube land
and you want the person to make it easier now
This is what I think, I think Bob will agree, every wheelchair
Yeah it should come standard, these little four inch extenders should be standard because it
Really, I'm not going to put this one all the way on because they're tight and we have to take that one off
But when you're sitting here, it's so much easier
to do that particularly if someone's elderly, they've had a stroke, one arm is weak
They can easily work this or if they had a stroke and this arm is not functional, they can reach around
And they don't cost very much
They're easy to put on
All you're doing is taking off the old rubber tip and putting on the new one,it looks like that one's permanent Brad
Yeah, no they are supposed to be tight, and it came off
You can see it on this one.
She threw it away
So anyways, that's the way to properly adjust the wheelchair do all the little things that will make it last
It'll make the person in the chair happy
and really reduce your risk for falls because you have something that's locked in tight every time
Yeah, they have by the way just as I mentioned they do have devices that
automatically lock the chair. They're huge devices and they hook up behind the chair and
Like if you sit in it and you wheel, but as soon as you stop wheeling
There's more than one type, one has an arm
The one I know, it pushes up under here and when you sit on it it pushes that arm and
Releases the brakes on the back, okay, so the weight of your bottom on the chair releases it, when you stand up
Oh, I see it locks automatically. Try to adjust those now that is something, that's a challenge
Yeah, yeah
But I wanted the people out there to know that there is that possibility
That if you have someone that just does not remember to lock their brakes, there are devices
That you can put on there because there are a lot of people like that
They're in a wheelchair. They still can get up, but they don't remember to lock the breaks
alright, good point Bob, so
Safety in a wheelchair once again, safety first. Remember Brad we can fix just about anything except
Not God but a broken heart, but we're working on it alright. Thanks a lot
You