Guest article: Pressure mapping tool helps mobility retailer assess customers with complex needs
BES Healthcare sat down with Jordan Davies from Wheelfreedom to discuss the private mobility specialist’s recent success with the BodiTrak Lite Pressure Mapping System.
For over 16 years, Chessington-based mobility specialist Wheelfreedom has been supplying wheelchairs, mobility scooters, rollators, beds, rise and recline chairs, stairlifts and more across London, Surrey and the South East of England.
In the last couple of years, Wheelfreedom has been involved with more case management companies and private OTAs, and correspondingly its respective client base has presented with more complex challenges including concerns over pressure area care.
In order to assess and provide appropriately for clients with skin integrity issues, the mobility specialist found that it would be highly advantageous to have access to an interface pressure mapping system.
The retailer states that its purchase of a BodiTrak Lite from BES Healthcare has been a great investment to provide this additional level of clinical information and insight as its client base has expanded.
Providing the right equipment
According to Jordan Davies, pressure mapping gives the Wheelfreedom team the ability to confidently assess clients with complex needs and provide them with the right equipment.
Pressure mapping not only provides a wealth of data to back-up clinical reasoning and experience, but also gives a more dynamic real-time analysis of the patient’s postural needs and allows different interventions to be assessed as appropriate.
In addition, it gives the team and clients reassurance and supports their decision-making process.
The Boditrak Lite system can also be used to deliver live feedback while assessing for different levels of equipment, for example, cushions.
For users with complex needs, pressure mapping has been an excellent tool when assessing a variety of different postural interventions and can save time in providing the best solution.
Jordan comments: ““It’s just a very nice interactive tool. And I think we are as a whole moving to a more data driven style of prescription. It 
very much fits with that.”
Educating staff
The Wheelchair and Special Seating team at Wheelfreedom use pressure mapping to train new and inexperienced clinicians across a variety of different interventions, Jordan states.
The system is easy to use, which gives them the confidence to prescribe the most appropriate equipment whilst supplementing the learning process.
The BodiTrak Pressure mapping system supports the teams clinical judgement and provides valuable and recordable feedback while trialling different products.
The live data display also gives the clinicians clear visual feedback which makes all aspects of posture and pressure area care training more memorable.
Engaging and motivating clients
From the Wheelfreedom team’s point of view, the biggest benefit has been user engagement.
The systems helps to clearly show end users the benefit of pressure area care products and how simple actions such as leaning forwards for a few minutes or moving into certain positions can be beneficial to relieve high pressures when seated – especially for clients who may have previously not been able to understand the benefits.
When the team at Wheelfreedom take the client through the display options, as soon as they get in the chair, and look at the visual representations on screen, it shows the whole picture and helps motivate them into maintaining the most appropriate posture and carrying out any useful exercises.
Clients have been known to be a lot more aware following pressure mapping sessions, and have come back 6-12 months down the line asking if they can have a review of their pressure, which they would never have done before.
Jordan adds: “As a teaching tool internally, it’s been brilliant, as it gives the team that visual aid and makes things a lot more memorable.”
Becoming a Training Centre
Wheelfreedom became accredited as a training centre around two years ago, providing CPD courses for healthcare professionals.
The range of healthcare professionals varies in clinical experience and access to different budget levels.
Some are only able to access a limited budget and wouldn’t normally have equipment like the BodiTrak at hand, so teaching them how to use a mat is beneficial.
Interestingly, Jordan comments, the team also had a great response to the pressure mapping out in Dubai as well, because it’s not something they’re using yet.
Other beneficial features
For a busy professional team there are a number of other features of BodiTrak Lite which makes the system such a useful tool.
These include a wireless option to enable rapid, hassle-free set-up. easy-t0-clean stretch fabric, a wide range of data collection options and reports available, and good battery life.
Jordan adds: “The most beneficial feature has got to be the ability to take snapshots to put into reports for people, because they just want that data. The fact that this one is wireless, is also fantastic.”
A final consideration was the competitive price point which made the system affordable, the BodiTrak lite is a great entry level system.
When asked if she would recommend the BodiTrak Lite system, Jordan replied: “Yes, I absolutely would. It gives a different dimension to the assessment. We’ve had great success and are looking to move to the BodiTrak Pro.”
