Lightweight Manual Wheelchair – Engage In Your Favorite Sports!

After a serious illness or injury, many people learn a wheelchair is now a daily requirement for the future. For most, the initial shock results in a deep depression and an unwillingness to survive. With counseling, rehabilitation therapy, and the love of friends and family, most people learn life can still be enjoyed, despite the extreme challenges. However, once active individuals often feel sports, careers, and social functions are now only memories of days before the wheelchair. Not so! With a lightweight manual wheelchair many people can learn to enjoy the same activities from a different perspective.

Sports enthusiasts are emotionally crushed, when a debilitating illness or spinal cord injury seemingly ends a major activity defining their personality and self-concept. Imagine being a championship tennis player waking up in traction. When the doctor reveals the permanent extent of the injuries, life seems over. However, with a lightweight manual wheelchair, active sports participation is possible for many with spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, etc. If fact, wheelchairs are now constructed with the athletic in mind. Lighter frames, inward tilting wheels and trim style add to speed and agility in the chair. Now sporty individuals can participate in racing, archery, wheelchair basketball, tennis, and skiing. Thus, athletes in wheelchairs can still lead active, fulfilling, and fun lives.

In addition to sports, individuals confined to wheelchairs can also enjoy promising careers with a lightweight manual wheelchair. In recent times, even lightweight wheelchairs are difficult for a handicapped person to handle without the help of friend or family. However, in answer to a growing wheelchair-bound population wanting to be more independent and vital, wheelchairs have changed considerably. Today, the manual wheelchair can be taken apart, folded, and stowed in the passenger seat of any vehicle, eliminating the need for a specially equipped vehicle. For example, the wheels can be separated from the hub. The armrests and footrest also come off with the push of a button. Any auxiliary parts, like tip bars, also come off with very little pressure or strength on the part of the handicapped individual. Finally, the seat and back fold to be pulled into the car and placed in the passenger seat or behind the driver’s seat. Thus, many handicapped people can go to work, shopping, or even traveling independently.

Independence is also important for social occasions. For instance, always having to ask for help, or a ride, can be frustrating. Then, the handicapped are totally dependent on another person. Thus, if a friend wants to leave early or stay late, the disabled are stuck. Having the freedom to come and go as one pleases is a major aspect of independence.

Regarding wheelchairs, a lightweight manual is synonymous with independence. Whether the handicapped want to have the ability to arrive and depart at will, pursue a career, or participate in recreational sports, disassembling and folding wheelchairs enable the physically impaired to live life to the fullest.

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