Life on Wheels (51 page)

Many local agencies provide used wheelchairs for people who are not getting proper funding support.

Your local center for independent living might have surplus chairs or parts or may know of someone looking to donate a chair or sell a used one.

Some major banks offer special loan programs. For example, San Francisco-based Bank of America offers a longer-term loan with no down payment required if you use the money for medical equipment. Check with major banks in your area.

In every case, you must get proper guidance in identifying what is appropriate for you, including proper cushioning, and have the chair adjusted to your needs.

Wheelchair manufacturers come in many varieties. There are large, corporate companies, small specialized producers, and innovative new companies with a more specialized focus—such as a power wheelchair built for outdoor terrain. You will want to find out what these various companies offer in the process of finding the optimal chair for you. Your therapist and dealer will have a lot of information about the major producers, and, hopefully, between the two of them, they will also have a well-rounded knowledge of smaller producers. No one can know it all, however, so it is in your best interest to do some investigating on your own.

The prescription wheelchair business is a difficult one, so your dealer simply cannot represent all makers. Dealers generally will represent the products that they feel offer the best pricing, the widest array of products and options, and, of course, that provide them with the profit margins that allow them to stay in business and provide you with good service. This means they operate on a fine line of conflict of interest, against the impulse to sell you the chair that produces the revenue their business requires, rather than the best solution from the overall market for your needs. Rather than this being a formula for mistrust, it is simply another reason why you want to be as well informed as possible so you can make the most of your working relationship with the dealer.

Large manufacturers employ more people and operate on bigger budgets. Greater resources mean major wheelchair manufacturers can invest more in research and development than can their smaller competitors. They can afford to build many prototypes and can take a little longer to develop new designs, since these large firms have a steadier stream of revenue from existing products. Following are additional advantages offered by large wheelchair manufacturers:

They have comprehensive lines of wheelchair products.

They can offer many options and accessories.

They can afford to spend time and money on aesthetics.

They have been in the business long enough to have a lot of experience behind them.

They will have refined their manufacturing and design over those years and will probably be around for the foreseeable future.

They are reputable and generally make good chairs, assuming you select the right model, properly configured.

Your dealer will have greater familiarity with the companies’ products and more experience maintaining and repairing chairs from larger manufacturers.

Here are some disadvantages of large wheelchair manufacturers:

Unless they are highly committed to continual design and development, they might not be offering the most innovative products because it is easy for them to rest on their current share of the market.