Question about manual wheelchair use..

[BabyFu18]

This is my first time traveling to Disney in a wheelchair, I've seen it mentioned other places about needing gloves so you don't get blisters on your hands from all the wheeling, do people who wheel themselves find this necessary?

I usually wheel myself around, I'm new to a wheelchair though (only about four months in), there will be others with me who can push me if need be but of course I like to wheel myself as much as possible. I don't use gloves or anything like that as of right now, but seeing as I've seen it mentioned on the boards before I was wondering if people who wheel themselves feel like gloves are really helpful? Would something like pushrim/handrim covers be just as good? Or would it be okay to go without either?

I know this is probably a personal preference, but since I've only used the wheelchair for a short period of time I'm not sure what I'll need or want when we are at Disney World. Thanks for any input!

 

[mamabunny]

The first time we ever used a wheelchair at WDW was 15 or so years ago with my Mom. I rented a chair from a local vendor, and started pushing her.

Halfway through the day, I had blistered hands, and I ripped my bandana in half, wrapped it around the hand grips, and sweet-talked a CM into giving me two rubber bands to hold them around the grips. Never made that mistake again - after that, we always brought along bike gloves for the "pusher".

Our daughter has a custom Ti-Lite chair, and typically does not need gloves, but she wears them at WDW because of time+distance. At college, she might wheel 2 miles, maybe 3 on a busy day, and has long breaks during classes, meetings, etc.

At WDW, we can easily go 8 to 10 miles a day. She never developed blisters from her rims, but she uses the gloves because - for her - they help prevent hand fatigue, and they also protect her hands in case someone bumps her (which can happen a lot when things get crowded, like after parades or fireworks).

You may not need them at all - and I so sincerely hope you don't! But, maybe take along an inexpensive pair for just in case? Better to have them, and not need them... If you leave the tags on, and don't need them or use them, you could even return them for a refund after the trip.

There may be someone here who has an even better suggestion - That's the wonderful thing about this forum!

 

[SueM in MN]

We don't use gloves, so it's not universal to need them.

My daughter is a full time wheelchair user, but she doesn't have the stamina to propel herself, so we do it at WDW.
At home, she's pretty independent, so it's not like we are used to pushing her all the time (or for hours at a time). She's quite obsessive and didn't like how gloves felt, so even though we got some for her, she's never worn them for more than a few minutes.
She has Natural Fit hand rims on her wheels, which are designed to help with fatigue and grip. I can say that before she got those hand rims, she had a lot more wrist pain.
http://www.out-front.com/naturalfit_overview.php

On my mom's last 2 trips, we got a wheelchair for her and my sister and I pushed it. She only went to the parks one day to Epcot, but we pushed her around the resort a lot.

We did get some gloves and try them one year, but didn't like them and only used them for a few hours before putting them away. So, some people find them helpful, some don't.

 

[SueM in MN]

Two other things that can make a difference would be the push handles themselves and how much your hands sweat.
If they sweat a lot, there will be more friction and more chance of trouble/blisters.
Some people have tried putting deodorant on their hands to help with sweating.

The push handles on my daughter's manual wheelchair are like this.


They are firm plastic, but very smooth and not slippery, even if they get wet. She's had past wheelchairs with different types, but also were firm, but not slippery.

I couldn't find any good pictures of the park/offsite rental wheelchairs that show the push handles, so I apologize for the picture quality.

The push handles are of a different hard and slippery plastic. They also are formed to fit the hands, but that also means that if your hands are slipping on them, they are rubbing against all those formed parts.

 

[Mrsjvb]

my husband is my motor but he wears gloves. and every WW friend I have in a chair also uses gloves. get fingerless ones. Mr JVB uses his weightlifting gloves but my Army pal uses custom ones for his use. they do make a neat little ratchet sort of thing you can attach to make self propelling way easier. you really have no idea how much traveling you actually do in the parks.

 

[gap2368]

I would get a pair if you do not need then then you do not have to use them but they are there if you need them

 

[BabyFu18]

Thanks for the info guys, right now I'm using a wheelchair that was loaned to me until my customized one comes in (should be here in the next few weeks, well before our Disney trips), I will call the dealer I'm getting my chair through and ask about the push handles and the handrim and see what type I should get or what type they ordered if that's already been done. I may grab a cheap pair of bike gloves to throw in my bag just in case, hopefully I won't need them but better safe than sorry.

I'm still building up my stamina in order to propel myself, but hopefully by our trip in the summer I'll be pretty good at it, thankfully my parents can push me if I tired easily. I want to be able to propel myself though especially in stores and things like that, I don't mind someone pushing me in tight locations and if I'm worn out so I'll try to get some gloves either myself or my parents can use if we need them.

 

[BabyFu18]

my husband is my motor but he wears gloves. and every WW friend I have in a chair also uses gloves. get fingerless ones. Mr JVB uses his weightlifting gloves but my Army pal uses custom ones for his use. they do make a neat little ratchet sort of thing you can attach to make self propelling way easier. you really have no idea how much traveling you actually do in the parks.

Do you have a website or any info about the gloves you are talking about with a ratcheting system, I haven't seen/heard about that before. Maybe that's to advanced for my needs, but I'll look into it.

As for gloves, if I have a pair of fingerless fashion gloves is that good enough or do I need something specific to wheelchair users/bike users?

 

[BillSears]

I self propel my wheelchair everywhere and I went to WDW for decades without gloves and did fine. But over the past few years I've brought some gloves and it had made a big difference. I noticed that I was coming home from WDW with bleeding cracks on my hands. It seemed that the combination of all of the pushing plus the rain was really taking a toll on my hands. I decided to get some gloves and try it out, the worked wonderfully. My hands felt fine at the end of the trip. Now I carry a pair in my backpack for when I'm pushing for distances over a few miles. They also help a lot on hills, I noticed the extra stress on my hands when pushing up a hill was causing damage. The gloves really help with that.

Here are the ones I use but I'm sure you can find something you like. One of the nice things about these is the little loops at the fingers. It makes it so much easier to pull the gloves off for when you need a bare hand.

http://www.amazon.com/Hatch-HLG250-...d=1456767697&sr=8-1&keywords=liquicell+gloves

 

[mamabunny]

As for gloves, if I have a pair of fingerless fashion gloves is that good enough or do I need something specific to wheelchair users/bike users?

We landed on bike gloves because they tend to have an extra layer of leather or non-slip material (depending on the manufacturer, price point, etc.) that not only gives a bit of padding, but also helps prevent your hands from slipping on the rims (or handlebars if you are the pusher).

 

[peemagg]

I tend to use gloves in Disney. I use them for those times that you have to hold yourself on a downhill slope or to slow yourself fast. I would get burns on my hands from the rims when I tried to slow myself sometimes and the gloves alleviated that problem. I also like the leather and padding on the palms for, lack of a better term, traction.

 

[BillSears]

Would something like pushrim/handrim covers be just as good? Or would it be okay to go without either?

I would stay away from the hand rim covers/coatings. I know many years ago I had some non-slip coating on the hand rims. They tore my hands up, they had much too much friction and got really hot when going down hill. Things may be different with the current versions but I'd stick with gloves for now.

 

[BabyFu18]

I called my wheelchair dealer to ask about the natural fit handrims so he's looking into that, he ordered a quickie brand wheelchair and he thinks that should be an option with them, so hopefully that will come through. I also found some gloves on Amazon for under $20 so I'm going to order those and had them in case I need them. Thanks for all the links guys, so helpful!

 

[SueM in MN]

The Natural Fit handrims are not a coating. They are a re-shape of the handrims. They give your hand a more natural way to hold onto the handrims.
They also are a way that prevents your fingers from getting caught in the wheels. And - you are not actually touching the wheels, so even many people who did use gloves don't need them with these handrims.
This is some of the research behind them:
http://www.out-front.com/naturalfit_research.php

They are an option for pretty much every wheelchair tire.
This link has pictures and also order forms for the various wheelchair types:
http://www.out-front.com/naturalfit_overview.php

 

[BabyFu18]

The Natural Fit handrims are not a coating. They are a re-shape of the handrims. They give your hand a more natural way to hold onto the handrims.
They also are a way that prevents your fingers from getting caught in the wheels. And - you are not actually touching the wheels, so even many people who did use gloves don't need them with these handrims.
This is some of the research behind them:
http://www.out-front.com/naturalfit_research.php

They are an option for pretty much every wheelchair tire.
This link has pictures and also order forms for the various wheelchair types:
http://www.out-front.com/naturalfit_overview.php

Thanks for the info, that's the website I gave to the dealer ordering the chair for me, he did some research and said since my chair is already in the assembly process they won't let me swap out these for the handrims the chair comes standard with, but the dealer said he can order these for me and install them no problem. I'm thinking of going with the natural fit LT, because my hands are smaller so I think those should be a good choice, do you or anyone who uses these handrims have a preference between the original natural fit and LT ones?

 

[SueM in MN]

Thanks for the info, that's the website I gave to the dealer ordering the chair for me, he did some research and said since my chair is already in the assembly process they won't let me swap out these for the handrims the chair comes standard with, but the dealer said he can order these for me and install them no problem. I'm thinking of going with the natural fit LT, because my hands are smaller so I think those should be a good choice, do you or anyone who uses these handrims have a preference between the original natural fit and LT ones?

I believe that if you Quickie Mag wheels, the hand rims need to be ordered with the tires. For others, they can be installed later.

My daughter has very small hands. She is 5 feet tall and about 85 pounds and her hands are in proportion to her size. This is her second wheelchair with Natural Fit hand rims. When she got the first set, the LT ones were not available, so she had the regular ones. When she got another set of tires, we just got the regular Natural Fit rims since that's what she was used to. They are not a problem with her small hands.
I can tell you that she used to have callouses on her palms and thumb. Since getting the Natural Fit hand rims, she no longer has any callouses.

 

[BabyFu18]

Thanks for the info, I believe the chair will have quickie spoke wheels, from what I can tell the handrims should be able to be added aftermarket on the chair. Good to know the regular size works even with smaller hands, I'm only 4'11 with smallish (but not tiny) hands so I was thinking I'd need the LT but if your daughter is good with the regular size I think they'll easily work for me. I'm going in to the dealer at the end of the week so once he is sure the handrims will work then we will order them. I appreciate all your help, I'm very new to this so I have no idea what I really needed or might want on the chair and so we just went with what our dealer recommended. I do know I need to order a cushion because that wasn't covered by our insurance, otherwise I didn't know how much could really be customized!

 

[SueM in MN]

Thanks for the info, I believe the chair will have quickie spoke wheels, from what I can tell the handrims should be able to be added aftermarket on the chair. Good to know the regular size works even with smaller hands, I'm only 4'11 with smallish (but not tiny) hands so I was thinking I'd need the LT but if your daughter is good with the regular size I think they'll easily work for me. I'm going in to the dealer at the end of the week so once he is sure the handrims will work then we will order them. I appreciate all your help, I'm very new to this so I have no idea what I really needed or might want on the chair and so we just went with what our dealer recommended. I do know I need to order a cushion because that wasn't covered by our insurance, otherwise I didn't know how much could really be customized!

i made an error - her current chair does have the LT hand rims. Her first one had the other size.
I was going to take a picture of her hands on the rims, but when I did, I saw she does have the LT ones.

Because of her needs, her whole chair is custom, so we're pretty aware of what all the sorts of things are that can be customized.

 

[BabyFu18]

Thanks for the update and clarification. I'll just talk to the wheelchair dealer and let him help me decide which size would be right for me! I appreciate the picture, thanks for that I hadn't found any photos of the LT to compare to the originals. Does your daughter have a preference on which she likes better since she's had experience with both sizes handrims?

Yeah I'm learning that apparently every little thing can be costumized, only thing I've costumized for mine so far is color, depth and width, push handles and arm rest options, tires and some seat structure things. Since this is my first time getting a wheelchair we found our insurance helped with the chair as long as it had standard features, anything we wanted costume we had to pay for OOP so that's what we've been doing researching things we wanted to change or what not and then just paying for those attributes ourselves.

 

[SueM in MN]

Thanks for the update and clarification. I'll just talk to the wheelchair dealer and let him help me decide which size would be right for me! I appreciate the picture, thanks for that I hadn't found any photos of the LT to compare to the originals. Does your daughter have a preference on which she likes better since she's had experience with both sizes handrims?

Yeah I'm learning that apparently every little thing can be costumized, only thing I've costumized for mine so far is color, depth and width, push handles and arm rest options, tires and some seat structure things. Since this is my first time getting a wheelchair we found our insurance helped with the chair as long as it had standard features, anything we wanted costume we had to pay for OOP so that's what we've been doing researching things we wanted to change or what not and then just paying for those attributes ourselves.

You definitely need to have justification for why anything that is not standard is needed.
Because my daughter can't walk, stand or even sit securely in a regular chair, she has a lot of options that most people don't need (headrest, gel cushion and back, foot straps).
These pictures maybe show the handrims a little better.
(First picture we were on the bus to MK for MNSSHP)

She likes her current handrims.