Seminar: Effective Seating Solutions for Aged Care
– Residential and Community
Technology Park Function Centre, Bentley
Thursday, 17 September 2020
Good seating and postural care can make a significant difference to someone who is elderly and has difficulty with independent mobility. The key principles of correct seating and positioning can influence the health and overall wellbeing of an elderly person.
An effective seating system is one that promotes comfort, pressure injury prevention, posture management and function. Ineffective seating systems can lead to an increase in pressure injury incidence, falls and mobility challenges.
For therapists new to the seating process, scripting an effective seating system for a frail older person can be a complex and overwhelming process. Apart from having to conduct a comprehensive supine and sitting assessment, factors such as health and lifestyle, medical considerations, cognitive skills, access concerns as well as psychosocial considerations all come into play.
Leading with our ‘enabling power of applied knowledge‘ and offering the benefit of being ‘the conduit that matches optimal solutions to specific need‘, the purpose of this seminar was to provide therapists with the knowledge and skills that would enable them to become more confident prescribers of effective seating systems.
This seminar was facilitated by Unicare Health’s Clinical Educator, Annette Terranova, an occupational therapist, and trainer with over 30 years experience working in healthcare. Annette has worked extensively as a clinician and consultant within the aged care sector and has significant experience in prescribing effective seating systems for the aged.
Annette started her seminar talking about her personal challenges with seating for aged care. She shared before and after photos of clients she’s developed seating systems for and discussed the intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing seating prescriptions.
She then took discussions further into client assessment and measurements and showed therapists how to take correct measurements when scripting seating systems.
Using Unicare Health’s range of commonly used and available seating options, Annette talked about seating system selection and highlighted the characteristics and differences of seating components. This enabled therapists to develop a greater familiarity with commonly prescribed seating options.
She also talked about bariatric seating equipment and the ability to retrofit options such as a power drive to reduce manual handling injuries and promote functional independence.
Annette also used the principles of good positioning and seating intervention to compare different seating systems and taught therapists how to use the tilt function on wheelchairs and regency chairs to keep the pelvis stable and prevent shearing.
Everyone who attended had a good time having a go with seating equipment for aged care, reviewing clinical advantages of different seating systems to develop a greater familiarity with commonly prescribed seating options.
Thank you
An effective seating system can make a huge difference to the quality of someone’s life.
To all who attended this seating seminar, thank you for your awesome feedback and for spending your day with us. We trust that our teachings will impact the way you continue to prescribe equipment solutions to achieve better seating outcomes. We are glad to be leading the way with seating education and appreciate your continued support and partnership that has made this another winning Unicare training event.
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Posted on 29 September 2020