Hey, I'm Aaron Baker, Shield HealthCare's Spinal Cord Injury Lifestyle Specialist.
Today I've got my friend Xander with me. Earlier in the year, we wrote a blog
about transferring. Today, we're gonna bring that blog to life.
Hey, Xander. -What's going on? -What are we gonna do right here? We're gonna transfer --
Wheelchair to table. -To the table with and without a transfer board. -This is a
transfer board. You get the transfer board below your butt on top of the
cushion on the wheelchair. You have a nice bridge between your body and the
table. Adds a little bit of safety for the long transfer ahead. All you got to
do: scoot yourself across that little board ...
voila. And now again: back. We have transfer board. We're gonna put it under
my butt and on the cushion of the wheelchair. -The brakes are on? -Brakes are on.
So that way, as I'm transferring, there's a nice platform below me
that allows me just slide into my seat rather than kind of hop over.
The transfer board would be really conducive for quadriplegics, like myself, where my
upper body isn't as strong as Xanders. I can slide that under me and bridge that
gap and that allows me to scooch over safely. -In my case, the transfer board
makes transferring a little harder, so I put on my brakes, take my feet off and I
just lift myself in one movement get on the table. You know, it took some practice
to get to that I started with this thing, but once you get the transfers down, you
can start using this a little less. During the transfer I'm using my upper
body to support all of my weight and there's a lot of weight put in my right
hand, which is supporting the movement.
Great. So, transferring on to a stable flat surface is one thing but
transferring into a soft low couch, like this, is a whole 'nother story.
You know, you go up at a bit of an angle that always
helps getting you closer to the -- to whatever you're gonna transfer onto.
And then, yeah, going on to something low is pretty easy. You don't have to put -- you
put a lot of weight in your right hand pushing yourself up and kind of letting
yourself fall back into the couch. You know, it's nice, you're chilling on
the couch, you're low, you're comfortable. It is a little different getting off
something low back into your chair. You do have to use a little more strength,
you have to push yourself up out of this cushion, and, again, this is all a motion
that, with time and practice, becomes a very easy push and twist. I'll try it on
the other side. -So clearly, Xander, when you're making these transfers the first
thing you want to do is make sure your chairs at the proper angle and the
brakes are locked. You want the chair to be as solid and stable as possible
because you are leveraging so much weight and force through it. -Right. No,
you're totally right. A lot of times I do transfer without my brakes, which you
know, can lead to some disaster. So I'll transfer without the brake, luckily the
chair stays in place because there's so much force being put down from my hand,
but there have been times where I'll be sitting on a couch -- I remember one night
I was sitting on a couch, I fell asleep, my wheelchair actually
rolled away -- like it rolled ten feet away. I wake up on the couch, I was like, "Here I
am. I forgot to put my brakes on." I think
putting the brakes on is probably the first thing you should always do when
doing it transfer. Into your car, too, because there are a lot of times where
I'll transfer into my car and my chair starts to roll away and it's just like, "Ah,
don't go." Again, getting back up, you're coming from something low, you're
gonna put a lot of weight in the hand on your wheelchair and you're gonna
push off with your other hand. And again it's one push and twist ... and you're good to go.
Alright, transferring to the ground.
From the chair to the ground and from the ground to the chair. This is one of the
hardest transfers, at least for me. You have to be technically sound and super
strong to make this happen, and I'm excited for Xander to show us today how
he does it. -So, when I first got injured this was something I was very scared of,
was falling and not being able to get back up into my wheelchair. But it didn't
take too long to learn how to do this. So, to safely get down onto the floor,
you're gonna want to scoot forward in your chair, keep one hand on the frame,
put another hand on the floor and just let yourself down slowly. And so now
you're just you're kicking it. You're at the beach, you're at Coachella, you're just like
vacation. But once the vacation's over: getting up, there's a bunch of different
techniques. The easiest way I've found is to have the chair almost perpendicular
to you, to bring your legs close to your body, knees to your chest and again this is --
this is strength and technique. You're gonna put a lot of -- you're gonna grip the
chair and you're gonna push off of the hand that's supporting you on the ground.
You're gonna push up, twist. -You make that look really easy. -I make it look really
easy and I know it's, like, not but ... When you're on the ground, it always helps
to have something higher to push off of, so if you can find a little rock or
anything that'll support you, you know, use that to your advantage.
-Even if like a curb? -Like a curb, like a step, anything that's a little higher off
the ground will make it much easier to do that. That took some practice and it
took a lot of time at the gym but we're here. -You know, I think staying fit and
strong is imperative for your independence. -And that's one of the main
reasons that come to the gym, to be able to do transfers off the floor for
whenever I'm somewhere and I fall, I need to get back up I can do it.
-Quite frankly, I'm not strong enough to get up off the ground myself. I need to have
assistance. -I fall a lot, actually. -I'm gonna keep working out and hopefully I
get strong enough to do exactly what Xander did. -You know, every day I get into
this piece of junk and I lock my brakes right foot in first.
I'm avoiding my hand controls, so when I transfer, I have space from my right knee
to go to. Push forward and it's -- it's so easy just to be able to transfer onto
something like the same height as your chair. -So, see: no brakes - chair just rolls away.
-Make sure you use your brakes. -Pull my legs in... -And we're racing. -Ready to go.
Getting out: brakes are on, left foot pull your foot back so it doesn't get stuck
up under the pedals or stuck on the side of your car or anything. You want to make
sure the hand controls are out of the way. You're gonna put your -- you're gonna
push off of your right hand, you're gonna guide yourself with your left. So push,
twist, land. -Alright, so Xander and I are gonna go for
a ride in my van. It's a little bit larger or taller than your typical
vehicle, so this is gonna be pretty tricky and interesting how Xander gets
into this van. -You know, it is a little intimidating rolling up to this.
It's much higher than my body but almost every tall car has a handle. I take my
left leg, I put it on the footplate where my legs are gonna go. Before I do
this transfer, I need to make sure my knee joint is loose so that when I pull
up I can get in. So most of my strength is exerted pulling myself up on this
handle. I use the left hand for stability and to kind of aim myself into the seat.
We're in. -Nice! So how about, now, dropping down off the seat into your chair?
So I have two options: I can either get my butt to where my feet are and you go
from there to the chair, or I can just drop down and hope for the best, which is
probably what I'm gonna do. -Make sure the brakes are locked. -The brakes are locked,
safety first. Letting myself down, I'm actually going
to hold the door and that's where my body weight is and ...
you know, it's hard having long legs but that's pretty easy. -Impressive, huh?
So here we are at a public restroom - toilet. You always want to have a hand
supporting where you're gonna land. So I would put my hand on the toilet seat,
push up out of the wheelchair and let myself down slowly on the seat. From here,
I would use this bar. I would have one hand on the chair, just keep it in place
one hand on this bar, push up and right back on. -Xander's been showing us how he
transfers independently -- a lot of times people need more assistance. I'm gonna
demonstrate a two-person transfer here with Laquita and Darlene.
Laquita's gonna get me from behind and Darlene's going to handle my legs. So what we do
first -- we're gonna transfer onto this Nu Step. I'm gonna start by swiveling the
seat of the machine and then I'll let the girls take over. So Darlene has me
safely under the knees, Laquita has me safely under the arms
gripping my torso, not putting too much pressure on my shoulders. And now, Laquita
will swivel the seat back, I'll grab my foot ... so that's a two-person transfer.
So for a long time I had to use a transfer board and as I progressed I could
utilize just my mother to help me with a one-person transfer from the wheelchair
to a hard surface. So we start with the transfer board: we're gonna stick that
right in there, yep. Sometimes you can take apart the chair a little bit, make
it easier. Right there, in front of the wheel. I would put my brakes on, but I don't have any.
-That's actually very critical.
So I'm gonna take my feet off, make sure that they're out of the way and she's gonna
grab me, I'm gonna hold on. And she's grabbing me by the belt loops or my pants
you don't want to rip -- it it's mostly the pants, but we're gonna count to three. [Both] - 1,2,3.
You can tell we've done that a few times. I'd say the most important part for you
is posture. Proper body mechanics, making sure that your back is straight. -Bended legs so that
you're -- you're not using your back you're using your legs to produce
the power that you need in order to do that pivot. It's really, really important
that you are, as the transfer-er, in proper alignment to save your back.
-Alright, here we have a pretty unique piece of equipment, it's called the Hoyer lift.
It's really intended for those of us that need a little bit more help
transferring. Most important part of this piece of equipment is the blanket here,
or the hammock. This hammock goes underneath the person while laying on a
flat surface: a table or a bed. Alright, here we go. She's crossing the bottom
hooks just for extra security. You just want to get it on there good and tight
and have it not slip. It's gonna cradle me like a hammock. Alright, I'm in.
Now we're going on a ride. Alright, so I can feel that we're coming off the table now,
that's good, and now we can be slid ... Voila. [Laughs].
So now we can basically go down wherever we want. Down the street or just over to
my chair or over to a bed or a table. But this is called the Hoyer lift.
It definitely helps transferring if you are in need of this kind of assistance.
Pretty cool device. Alright, well we've had a lot of fun sharing this video
you today. Thanks for joining us, Xander, Laquita. -Of course. Hopefully we've made
transferring a little less scary for you. -And a little safer. -We'll see you guys
next time.