- Hello, lovely people!
Welcome to what will hopefully,
be the first episode in a series about
Powered Mobility Aids,
a subject that makes me feel queasy in my stomach.
Not at the thought of needing a mobility aid,
or even the slight feeling of embarrassment when
I use one.
Although to be fair that's probably because
I slam into anything and everything, and everyone.
I failed my driving test eight times.
Subscribe if you're also a terrible driver!
No, it makes me feel queasy because I'm
terrified of making the wrong decision.
Buying the wrong thing, and then I'm lumbered with it,
and it's not helping me,
and it is, in fact, actively unhelpful because it's
such a huge amount of money.
And it's really a very very big deal, and
I don't know how to feel about it.
Oh my god.
Wow.
So, my complex fears about money and
difficulty spending money on myself have
crushed together with a
horrible, weird, disability feelings and
(loud clap)
(displeased hum)
I just want to do the right thing, but-
All right, "What are mobility aids?" I hear you ask.
Well, a mobility aid is a device that is
designed to help people who have problems moving around
in order to gain greater independence.
Obvious examples would be a walking stick, or
a wheelchair.
We've all seen the symbol for disability, after all.
But it's worth bearing in mind that
you don't need to be completely paralyzed or
have non-functioning legs in order to use a wheelchair.
Many people who are able to stand or walk will
also use a wheelchair or a similar device.
This can be for a number of reasons, including
because their legs hurt when they stand or
walk any greater distance than just around their house.
Or, because they have fatigue problems, or
blood pressure issues.
All of these, all of the above.
Mobility aids can be used as a preventative as well as
a cure.
If it takes you this much energy to
walk down the street on your wobbly legs, or
this much energy to walk down the street with a cane,
then it's a- It's pretty obvious-
It's a pretty obvious choice, wouldn't you say?
(soft cymbal clash)
(displeased hum)
Says the girl who's put off buying a new mobility aid
for the last 10 years.
You know-
(awkward forced laughter)
(soft cymbal crash)
Yeah, okay, I've got absolutely no excuse here.
I'm doing it now, okay? It's happening!
I had to make a series on my YouTube channel to
make myself do it, but,
it's happening!
The mobility aids I currently use are
a manual wheelchair and a pair of crutches.
Which are great for when my hips are really painful,
or I've turned my ankle over, but need to kind of
get over any terrain.
The wheelchair's great for when I'm on a very flat surface,
but it's really damn heavy and bulky, and
it's difficult to use up hills because my arms are
very weak, and downhills because the breaks are my hands.
It also doesn't fit in the car at the same time as
my nephew's buggy.
It's light enough for even me to lift it into
the car when taken apart, which means I can
take it on trips.
Providing they're trips to flat places.
Also, my chair is electric blue and
I'm a terrible person who only likes using things when
they are coordinated, even if it's actually something that
I really physically need.
(comedic drum hit)
Colors are important, people!
Moving on.
It's mainly the hands thing.
As I mentioned in the video I made a few weeks ago,
they're not great.
And I want to be able to leave the house and
by myself I'll go to the shops, which I can't
do on foot for both energy and pain reasons,
and I can't do my manual wheelchair because
I live in Brighton, which apparently is just one big hill.
I mean, no one informed me of this when I
first moved here even though I used my
wheelchair much more then.
If this is me struggling on a carpet,
imagine me trying to go up a hill.
So, I'm only looking at powered ones, and
the two options being a mobility scooter,
which is generally like a cross between a motorbike and
a toddler's souped up tricycle.
And despite being huge, for some reason it's
totally legal to drive on both the road and
the pavement without a license.
Yay!
They have three or four wheels and are pretty bulky.
Really.
You may have been hit with one in a shop,
by an old person who genuinely does not care for
the highway code.
Which doesn't actually apply inside of a shop,
but maybe it should.
Regardless, I want to be able to run into
people inside a building that I shouldn't be
allowed to take my motorized vehicle into.
Scooters are generally made for outdoor use.
They are really powerful enough to handle
bumpy pavements and grass,
maybe even cobbled streets,
and can often go relatively fast, if you consider
five miles an hour to be fast.
Some can be taken apart to fit into the boot of your car,
and some even fold up at the touch of a button.
The really expensive ones.
Debatable as to whether the cool folding ones are
actually great at pavements, though, I mean,
that's to be decided.
I shall try and test them out!
Some also have really cute little baskets on the front,
which would be great for my handbag or
for Tilly, if she doesn't want to walk.
She's on my lap right now and to be fair, she
generally just sits there,
if she doesn't want to do anything.
The other option I'm looking at it a power chair.
It's a wheelchair with its own electric motor.
It therefore, doesn't rely on your arm strength or
someone else's thigh muscles to move.
These are much smaller, obviously, since they're
similar to manual wheelchairs and can turn on
their own circle rather than the big loop that
scooters have to make.
Being small means they fit in corridors and
on buses, but where do I put my handbag?
And, are they actually light enough to be lifted into
a car?
Because that looks pretty bulky to me.
Although, there are these folding ones, but
they look kind of scary and medical.
I hate things that look medical.
Which is so silly because clearly they look medical,
they're designed to fulfill a medical purpose.
But still, I have some medical trauma and
it makes me feel sick inside.
Often we don't address how physical health and
the difficult experiences it puts us through,
negatively impact our mental health.
Buying a mobility aid is like buying a car.
It's really expensive, it's important to get the right fit,
and there are a stupid number of add-ons to consider.
And, if you made the wrong decision, you're going to
be really annoyed with yourself.
Also, if you get something really flashy,
people will assume you're over-compensating for
something.
Just saying.
So I thought it was important to make the
powered mobility aid version of the millions of
"Which car?" Videos on YouTube.
This video is the first of a four-part series that
I will be releasing over the next few weeks.
And I'm going to be looking at motorized scooters,
and powered wheelchairs, then deciding between them.
I really want these videos to be a treasure trove of
info and advice that people can return to whenever
they're in need.
So please do join in with your own thoughts and
experiences in the comments below, and I will be
reading them and they will probably help me to
actually decide on what I actually end up with.
So thank you in advance.
I'm by no means an expert, I'm just a girl looking for
her perfect mobility aid and this is hopefully my
journey towards finding it.
Because this is going to be a damp squib of
a series if I don't.
I realized that I was being a dumb-dumb about
not getting myself a motorized aid when I
found myself, for the fifth day in a row,
lying on my bed and crying from my soul about
the pain in my legs.
My body pain is pretty easy to manage day by day
since I don't actually leave the house much.
I move around my house but I don't generally
walk more than 20 meters at a time.
And I take daily painkiller prescriptions.
My difficulty comes when I leave the house.
I want something that, like I said,
I can take to the local shops and also that will
get on the train to London.
It needs to be lightweight enough for Claudia to
lift into the car, but not so light that I feel like
I'm going to tip over if I go over a pencil.
Why there is a pencil on the pavement?
I have no idea.
Obviously, since I want ansolutelyeverything tied up in
one little bow, this is going to be the
easiest search ever, right?
I will definitely find what I'm looking for
right away, won't I?
(bouncy twang)
Well, okay.
The best thing to do is just to try as many
options as possible.
So, Claud and I headed to our nearest
large mobility aid showroom and decided that
we were going to try things out.
Hello!
We are in the car in a car park, if you hadn't gathered.
- Wow! So exciting!
- Yeah, today's entire video is just going to be
us in a car park just chilling, making games, having fun.
- It's also 28 degrees so that's going to be really fun.
Slowly, it'll get more and more sweaty.
- No, no we're here to leave the car.
We're here to leave the car, not just melt.
- It's the destination that's more important.
- Yes, it's today we're doing something potentially scary,
potentially life-affirming.
That made it sound like-
- [Claudia] You built it up so much!
- [Jessica] we were here to get a baby!
- That's not this video yet, I'm sorry.
You have to wait for that one.
No, I'm going to be trying out mobility scooters,
because we've finally decided it's ridiculous.
I need one, I can't keep pretending I don't.
- Yeah, it'll be so nice and you can go for
dog walks without like, having to think,
"Do I have enough energy to go for this dog walk?"
Obviously now that we live by a park that's got pavement.
- I can leave my house.
Do we live by a park, Claudia?
Do we?
Do we live by a park?
- Oh no, sorry, cut that bit out.
- I'll be able to go to the shop by myself!
I mean, maybe, probably not too long a distance by myself.
Probably shouldn't be left alone for too much time,
but still!
And I can ride on my own thing on the airport,
and not have to wait for bloody special assistance!
- Oh yeah, that would be good.
- To leave me in a corner!
For two hours, every time.
- See it's either you have the choice of,
"Do you want to go to the departure lounge?"
"Or do you want to go to the-"
- "Shops, but then we won't take you to
the departure lounge."
- And it's like, "Oh but I want to do both."
- Like, okay?
- Oh no, so departure lounge or the gate?
- There's your choices, bye!
- And it's literally like we just want to grab
some water and they literally just wheel you off.
- Please, the water!
The water!
So, we going to have to make some tough decisions,
like do we get a fold up one that's quite light?
But then does that mean that it's going to be
too rickety and it won't go up curbs properly?
And it will be very expensive.
- You don't need to go up a curb!
I mean, drop curbs!
- I mean, it's nice that you assume everywhere has
accessibility, Claudia!
- Also, it's a mobility scooter so if the drop curb is
on the other side of the road.
- Oh yeah, I won't mind walk-
- Yeah, you won't mind!
- Walking?
- In your normal wheelchair you're like,
"Oh, for god sake," because it means you have to-
- Too far, too far!
- I like this thinking.
- From a practical sense you need to look at like,
the amount of power it can generate.
Can it go up a hill? What's the battery capacity?
- What's its distance?
How long does it take to charge up?
All of these things.
- Can we go now? Because it's getting slowly
hotter and hotter in here.
- Oh my god, we're just going to die.
Bye! See you in there.
(bouncy harmonica and bass music)
You don't need a driving license for these.
It's like driving a go-cart, right?
(bouncy harmonica and bass music)
Okay, wow, that's-
I'm going to turn the speed up a little bit.
Oh wait, can you not turn it up?
Okay, there we go.
(bouncy harmonica and bass music)
Can you not change the speed whilst driving?
And,
halt.
For the price, these buttons are very clunky.
(bouncy harmonica and bass music)
The buttons just feel very,
kind of cheap, I think, for the price.
And they weren't very responsive.
And then right hand goes forward, left hand goes in reverse.
(bouncy harmonica and bass music)
(loud steady beeping)
Wow, reversing is very slow.
- [Sales Assistant] You can turn it up.
- [Claudia] It's quite fast, that one.
(bouncy harmonica and bass music)
- I feel like this one is more,
solid.
(bouncy harmonica and bass music)
That's pretty good
- [Sales Assistant] Pretty good?
- Do you have anything I could ride over?
- [Sales Assistant] Only outside.
(bouncy harmonica and bass music)
Because if you were just in the park,
and you went a bit too far and you just wanted to
reverse, you don't want everyone looking at you.
(bouncy harmonica and bass music)
- So, which one was your, like-
- Which is my favorite?
I think the decision is more about whether we go for
power chair or mobility scooter,
rather than what I go for within those categories.
Because that feels like a really big difference to me.
- What is your favorite scooter, then?
- My favorite scooter, I think, was the red one that
you could get in silver because I felt like it had
a really good amount of space for me to put my feet.
I could put a bag next to my feet, and I liked that.
I didn't feel crushed at all.
The seat felt quite comfortable.
I think the other one's seat was more comfortable,
but the seat was fine.
I wasn't bothered by that.
- I was like, "Oh I like the other one because
supported a bit, for you actually."
- It does look a bit like a Transformer, that one,
the one you like.
You're like, "Oh, it's so sporty!"
- I noticed that it was in black and
that's kind of the color I would go for.
- Yeah, it was a bit much.
The other one had slightly more elegance to it,
- Okay.
- slightly smaller frame, I thought that was nice.
- I mean I can easily take it apart and lift the bits in.
It's just that that in itself is a little bit of-
- Thing to do, taking things apart.
Of course, with the power chair there's the one that
just folds down like a buggy.
That seems great, takes up not that much space,
batteries are smaller.
It does feel a bit hospital,
to me.
The chair was a bit more,
like a-
- Like a standard wheelchair?
- Yeah, the chair was a bit more like a standard wheelchair.
It wasn't a nice padded, "Here I am on my comfortable seat."
- The scooter comes with,
a key-
- Yes.
- So if you're like-
You're all right walking around shops,
you can get into the shop, put it into the
entrance of the shop, and if it's quite busy in
the shop, you can just take your key out, and
walk around the shop, and then go into the
changing rooms and stuff, and go into the toilet,
and just not worry about it too much.
But with the chair, you're not really meant to
leave them unattended.
- You can't leave it.
- And then, it's not as if I live in an incredibly
accessible city, where definitely every shop is accessible.
- Well, yeah, some shops we know have steps up to them.
Like that one we went to yesterday, Hills, in
Brighton and saw three steps.
Like you said, you wouldn't be able to get in with
your chair and you don't want to leave your chair just
on the pavement.
But with a mobility scooter, I don't think you'd
mind so much leaving it out.
- Yeah, because you take the key out.
- And you can sort of just park it on the pavement.
- So unless someone's stood there for a while hot-wiring it.
- And also it's quite normal to see scooters on
the pavement.
- Yeah, and no one ever looks like they're stealing them.
- No, they don't look like it.
- But also, the chair was like, 2000 pounds.
- Yeah, chairs are way more expensive.
- And that's not including VAT.
And then the scooter that you liked was 699 pounds.
- It also felt if I was going down a hill,
I'd definitely feel more secure in
the mobility scooter because I've got my little-
- I just realized the air con was on, sorry,
so there might just all sound really like
(loud whooshing)
- Oh no!
Oh, Claudia
But yeah, if I'm going down a hill in my
mobility scooter, then because my arms are already out,
so I feel,
I'd feel quite secure.
- Well exactly, that's why I said what did you want it for.
If you wanted it to be used indoors all the time,
and you already used your wheelchair a lot,
then I think the chair is quite good.
But you kind of want to use it outdoors,
- Inability to hold up camera
- You know?
- It is talking about what do I want it for, what do
I need it for.
- The scooter's more for outdoors but you can
take it into supermarkets and things if you want to.
I know she said that, but also at the same time,
you quite like pushing the trolley and choosing things,
so you can't really do that with a scooter.
- No.
True.
- Firstly, I think the idea is it gets you places,
and then you can have a bit of your energy reserved to
do what you were going to do in that place.
But at least you haven't used up the energy to
get to that place.
- Yes.
Or if we go somewhere that is easily
move around-able,
like the park, you drive to the park, take it out,
we go around, sounds like a good idea.
- Also if we went to a national trust park, for instance,
we don't know what it's going to be like.
Then we can bring it up ahead and be like,
"Is it okay to use a mobility scooter?"
And they'd be like, "Oh yeah you can stick to
the paths," so then (mumbles) then we get to
where the café is, and you have to go down some steps,
at least you can just park your scooter there and
then go down the steps.
I think we both feel anxious about leaving the chair.
- I agree, because that would be an expensive thing.
- An unattended power chair just seems a bit weird.
It's like, "Where the person's gone? What's
happened to them?"
- But, as we were saying,
a power chair does seem
more "disabled."
I would kind of worry sometimes that I would be
going around in the mobility scooter, and someone would
assume I'd stolen my grandmother's mobility scooter.
But in a power chair, they'd just assume it was mine.
Do you know what I mean?
- I think with a power chair, people will think you're
more chair-bound.
Whereas with scooter it's more to do with saving energy.
That's probably really bad but that's generally what
the perception is, isn't it?
You don't see an old lady and think, "Oh dear,
you're scooter-bound."
You just think-
- You're scooter-bound
- "Oh you just can't walk very fast."
- People would be less shocked if I got up from a
mobility scooter.
- Although I don't think that should be a
deciding factor on what other people think.
- No, other people's opinions should not be
a thought.
- I'm really hot because we had to turn the
fricking air con down.
- [Jessica] All right, we'll stop filming so you can
have your air con back on.
Can't lie, riding around was a lot of fun and
felt very freeing.
It's hard to tell what something's actually like in
real life when you've only seen it inside a
showroom, however.
So, the next move.
Renting a mobility scooter for a week and then
renting a power chair for a week, which you will
see the first of in the very next mobility aid video,
which should be out next week on Friday.
Please do add your thoughts and any
recommendations you may have into the comments section.
Hey, if you happen to know about the perfect thing that
fulfills all of my needs and is everything at once,
then please do tell me.
And if that answer is a unicorn, I entirely understand
where you're coming from.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in my next video.
(cheerful harmonica music)