What Are the Best Mobility Devices for Young Adults?
In the United States and around the world, a large number of young adults use mobility aids to help them navigate life safely and independently. In fact, it's estimated that around 6.8 million Americans use a mobility device, including wheelchairs, scooters, canes, crutches, and walkers.
While mobility issues are sometimes due to something obvious like an accident, a limb amputation, or a life-long condition like muscular dystrophy, other conditions—including chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and multiple sclerosis—can have a real impact on independent mobility due to fatigue, pain, and muscle weakness, even if your condition isn't visible to anyone else.
If you are a young adult who is having trouble walking, standing, or getting up independently for any reason, mobility devices can provide support and help you maintain an active lifestyle without exceeding your limits. Today, mobility aids for young adults come in fun colors and with a wide range of accessories, so you can use them loudly and proudly.
Types of Adaptive Equipment for Young People
There are two main types of mobility aids: mobility aids for walking and devices that are installed for safety in the home. Within both categories of adaptive equipment, you can find mobility aids that offer a minimum of support all the way to mobility aids that offer total body support.
The right solutions for you will depend on your exact needs, abilities, environment, and lifestyle and may change from day to day and year to year. On Monday, you might be fine with just a cane, and on Tuesday you might be especially tired and need a wheelchair. That's totally okay.
Mobility devices for walking may be appropriate for young people who:
Tire easily
Have balance issues
Experience pain while walking
Have muscle weakness on one or both sides
Need help with posture control
Are recovering from surgery
Are recovering from an injury, sprain, or strain
Are missing all or part of a lower limb
Popular mobility devices for young people include canes (walking sticks), crutches, knee scooters, rolling walkers, manual wheelchairs, power wheelchairs, and mobility scooters. All of these devices can be purchased at mobility stores, and many can be customized or even custom-made to your specific requirements.
Canes
Canes or walking sticks provide support on one side and can bear up to 25% of your body weight. Canes are most appropriate for young people who are weaker on one side but can still walk independently. The canes on offer today—including those that we stock at our Denver, Colorado showroom—come in a wide variety of colors and designs, and with a range of handle styles.
Rolling Walkers
Rolling walkers can help with balance and have a padded seat where you can rest if you tire quickly. They can bear up to 50% of the user’s body weight and provide support on both sides of the body rather than one. A rolling walker could be right for you if you have some weakness in one or both legs or you feel fatigued after walking short distances.
Manual Wheelchairs
Manual wheelchairs are ideal for young people with good upper body strength whose lower limbs are compromised due to a health condition, injury, surgery, or amputation. They can also be useful for fatigue conditions because they take some of the weight off your feet and double as a seat.
Transport Chairs
If you struggle with general weakness and a manual wheelchair would be too tiring to use, someone could push you in a transport chair. Transport chairs are very lightweight and fold up for easy transportation in the seat or trunk of a car. They are ideal for occasional outings when it would be too tiring to walk for long periods of time. They are also good for temporary support, such as while recovering from illness or surgery.
Power Wheelchairs and Mobility Scooters
Power wheelchairs and mobility scooters can be a short-term or long-term solution for young people with limited upper body strength who need to use a mobility device most of the time. If you will purchase your own power wheelchair or mobility scooter rather than renting one, you can customize your device with a wide range of colors and accessories, including speakers, cane holders, USB ports, and more.
Crutches and Knee Scooters
Crutches are generally used by people who have broken bones or fractures and need to take the weight off a lower limb temporarily. Knee scooters can be used if you need to take the weight off one foot for a few weeks or months after an injury or surgery. Both of these mobility devices are designed to be used temporarily rather than permanently and don't help with things like pain or fatigue.
Adaptive Equipment for the Home
Young adults with balance problems or weakness can benefit from a few simple home adaptations to assist with standing and moving between levels with their mobility device. These kinds of adaptive equipment can help you to live independently when safety might be a concern.
Grab Bars
Grab bars can be placed next to the toilet and bath and inside the shower for support standing up from a lying or sitting position. They can also help to prevent a fall if you experience weakness in one or both legs.
Sit-to-Stand Lifts
Sit-to-stand lifts can be helpful for young people who have difficulty standing up from the bed. These lifts use a combination of a hand crank (operated by another person) and the user's own strength to make it easier to transfer from the bed to standing or from the bed to a wheelchair.
Vertical Platform Lifts and Wheelchair Ramps
If you'll be using a wheelchair inside the home, wheelchair ramps and vertical platform lifts help you to move between levels safely with your chair.
Wheelchair ramps are recommended for very short flights of stairs where there is enough horizontal space to ensure an incline no steeper than 1:12 (1 foot of vertical height for every 12 feet of ramp length) as per the ADA wheelchair ramp requirements.
Where there isn't enough space for a wheelchair ramp or you need to move between floors, consider a vertical platform lift. These lifts consist of a platform, shaft, walls, and gates and work a bit like an elevator. Different models are available for indoor and outdoor use.
Stairlifts
Perhaps you only need to use a wheelchair when you go out but have concerns about your balance (or energy levels) walking up and down the stairs. In this case, you can get a stairlift to help you get safely up and down the stairs. Once the stairlift has moved down the track, you can pivot the seat of the stairlift to transfer into your chair.
Seek Professional Advice Before Choosing an Aid
When selecting an assistive device, it's extremely important to consult with a medical professional or physical therapist about device selection and receive proper training in the use of the aid.
In one study, only 20 percent of rolling walking users received training in the correct use of their device—putting these adults at a greater risk of falls and postural strain. If you are going to use a mobility device, make sure that it’s properly adjusted to your height and that you maintain and use it correctly.
Make Sure You Get the Right Model and Size
After you've selected the best kind of device, you need to make sure that you choose the right size for your height, your weight, and the weight of anything you want to carry (bags, musical instruments, etc.).
You should also make sure it’s an appropriate model for the surfaces you want to use it on. For example, there are power chairs with all-terrain tires for riding on uneven surfaces like sand and hiking tracks.
Love Your Assistive Device
As a young person who uses a mobility aid, it’s important to choose a device that provides the exact kind of support you need (and is the right size), gets you where you need to go, and reflects your unique personality.
Mobility aids today come in a lot of varieties and with a host of possible modifications. For young adults today, it’s easier than ever to find a mobility device that you can be proud to own.