Adaptive Mobility
and Positioning

Last week I attended the Combined Section Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association. It was held in San Antonio (great choice, especially in February!) and included some excellent programming. I’d like to share highlights from one of the workshops which focused on using lift and transfer devices in schools. It was presented by therapists from four large school districts. Each district...

The Rifton TRAM offers unique recovery opportunities in rehab, homecare and school-based settings with its capacity for supported ambulation, seated and sit-to-stand transfers.

Since our newest items, the Rifton TRAM and the New Pacer both have the capacity to support walking practice and have similar prompts, including arm prompts, trunk support, and walking saddle, therapists often wonder which to choose for ambulation or gait training. Because the TRAM does a lot more than gait training – it’s a three-in-one device that combines sit-to-sit...

The Rifton TRAM is a great addition to our skilled rehabilitation department, especially for those patients with neurological deficits. One therapist can safely assist a patient in the TRAM through a functional mobility progression starting with sitting balance on the edge of the bed, standing tolerance, posture and then gait normalization. In the past, many of these therapeutic activities needed multiple...

For those of us concerned with rehab following central nervous system lesions, the last ten years have been exciting. There has been extensive research focused on the brain and its neuroplastic properties, and it’s changing the way we think about treatment. Specifically, recent research has encouraged gait rehabilitation – task-specific and repetitive. We all recognize now that ambulation...

In a profile published this month in the influential trade publication Mobility Management, staff writer Laurie Watanabe highlights the multi-tasking capabilities of the Rifton TRAM, citing its role as a gait trainer, a lift, and a transfer device. She quotes therapist Margaret Arnold on how the TRAM is helping people with a multitude of disorders or conditions, and tells the story of a brain injury...

Jim Bennett formed his company to help people stay in their homes longer and more safely. Originally serving the greater Phoenix area, ADL Solutions has since expanded to serve clients statewide and even further afield. Because ADL has been supplying so many TRAMs to their clients we wanted to find out more about Jim’s operations and how his clients were benefitting from the TRAM. What are the most...

Why Worry about Lifting? In the healthcare setting, manually lifting or transferring patients causes musculoskeletal injury for both staff and patients. As a result, many healthcare facilities have implemented “no-lift” or “zero-lift” safe patient handling (SPH) policies requiring the use of mechanical lifts for all patient transfer and positioning tasks. The results have been...

As a physical therapist in the home care setting, I am always looking for new and innovative ways to improve a patient’s ability to perform functional mobility and activities of daily living (ADL). Improving mobility and ADL performance helps prevent bodily deterioration, reduces caregiver stress, and enables the patient to stay at home longer before requiring institutionalized care. One of my most...

It is an exciting time in the field of rehabilitation. For people who have sustained a neurological injury such as a stroke, incomplete spinal cord injury or traumatic brain injury there is now hope for regaining the ability to ambulate and sometimes even achieving a full recovery. In the past, a neurological injury was viewed as irreversible, and rehabilitation was focused on helping patients adapt and...