New Mobility

Unless you use a wheelchair full-time, it’s almost impossible to understand how make or break the right seating and positioning setup be can for your health, wellbeing and functionality. A bad seating system means constantly swimming upstream, battle balance, spasms, blood pressure and any number of complications. Dialing in a good setup can be life changing. It means that yo...

With a full-time job he loves, a thriving family life, and a part-time gig as an adjunct professor, Jarom Hlebasko is a busy man. Hlebasko, a C5 quadriplegic, wasn’t looking to take on any more responsibilities, but when he found his ability to continue living his active life threatened, he decided adding one more responsibility was better than being stuck at home in bed. In ...

Over the course of 25 years as a wheelchair user, I’ve spent hundreds of nights camping. I love the whole experience: campfires, hot coffee on cold mornings, even the sound of rain pattering on the fly. But there are parts of camping that are more of a pain than they need to be. The prime offender is the sleeping bag. Trying to zip up one up around a spastic, paralyzed body w...

Years of avoiding pressure sores have taught me not to mess with a seating system that works. With a tweak here and some extra padding there, I kept my custom RIDE cushion and backrest on life support well past their expected expiration dates, but alas, all good things come to an end. I eventually had to replace both with new molds that reflected my body’s changes, and while ...