Workshop: Person-centred Moving and Handling Equipment
– Tips, Techniques & Clinical Practices
Technology Park Function Centre, Bentley
Thursday, 18 February 2021
“While moving and handling equipment knowledge is essential to effect task-oriented transfers, incorporating person-centred approaches is key to improving client safety and wellbeing.”
Equipment designed for moving and handling people has become an integral component of manual handling programmes.
Having fit for purpose equipment is one of the most important aspects to ensure positive client and carer outcomes. Appropriate equipment selection and knowledge of use remains critical in ensuring consumer and carer, safety, confidence and comfort.
Innovations in moving and handling equipment technology and functionality are constantly evolving. This creates a need to remain up to date with products, functions and features in an effort to provide the optimal equipment solution for each individual user, environment and circumstances.
“While moving and handling equipment knowledge is essential to effect task-oriented transfers, incorporating person-centred approaches is key to improving client safety and wellbeing.”
Leading with our ‘enabling power of applied knowledge‘, the aim of this workshop was to provide clinicians with tips and techniques surrounding moving and handling equipment to improve manual handling solutions for clients and carers. As clients who require moving and handling equipment are moving from ‘ability to disability’, incorporating person-centred approaches to look after mental and physical wellbeing is key to improving safety and wellness during these task-orientated manual handling processes.
This workshop was facilitated by Annette Terranova, clinical educator and trainer at Unicare Health.
Annette started her presentation looking at all the stakeholders in the manual handling process, discussing the mental and wellbeing needs of clients and carers and discussing the risks associated in manual handling processes.
She talked about the role of the allied health professional in the manual handling process and the common struggles faced by clients and carers that the allied health professional was challenged to ‘fix’.
Annette highlighted common battles clients and carers face when disability becomes part of everyday life and how confronting it is to lose privacy, choice and control. She addressed this by providing useful techniques to encourage clients to become part of the manual handling process to draw focus on their abilities and not on their disabilities.
Learning to become more intelligent about moving and handling equipment was certainly an enjoyable experience at this workshop.
Clinicians were introduced to common moving and handling equipment such as the Australian designed Ansa Alto lifting hoist by Allegro Concepts, and had a go being lifted using different yokes and slings to understand the clinical features of equipment and what made one piece of equipment different from the other.
Clinicians were also given a chance to appreciate the difference in lift made by the Oxford Journey and Ansa Salsa standing hoists, and witness how slight differences in equipment features can make a piece of equipment more suitable in solving a manual handling problem.
They also witnessed how the Oxford Lifting and Standing Hoists can be folded for easy transport when portability was essential.
Annette also encouraged clinicians to be mindful about construction materials when prescribing equipment as an aluminium hoist will tend to creek over time causing distress to clients and carers. For someone living with dementia, a hoist of steel construction would be more appropriate.
Participants enjoyed an insightful time at this workshop, learning about incorporating person-centred approaches and getting themselves acquainted with common moving and handling equipment.
Thank you
Unicare Health would like to thank everyone who took the time to attend our person-centred moving and handling equipment workshop. We are proud to be your source of advice for manual handling equipment solutions and trust that our training will impact the way you continue to develop manual handling solutions to achieve better client and carer outcomes.
We love working with all of you.
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Posted on 24 February 2021