Advice on Cushion Seating

[my4helpers]

As some of you remember, I had posted a while ago about my uncle being a quadriplegic and unable to talk because he suffered from a stroke. Anyway, he has been in the hospital/nursing home since last Sept. and this summer we are wanting to take him out for a day. The LTC facility is completely OK with it. Today he expressed that he was nervous because he is afraid his bottom is going to hurt. We will have a ton of family with us to help reposition him. However, is there any type of special cushion that I could look into? I have no idea on where to begin to look.

[my4helpers]

As far as speaking, has he had a speech therapist? There are many augmentative communication device, i.e. Dynavox that he could be set up with that would allow him to communicate using an automated voice. Something to consider, but a speech therapist would be the best to talk to about that.

Could you tell me how this works? I could look more into it and ask his speech therapist about it. Basically whatever he wants, he has to buy himself. They are really not doing too much to make him more comfortable.

[OTconsideringBSN]

They can fit it to his strengths, so if he has good head control, they could use a head wand, which he can use to tap onto a screen to select his words. There is also a mouth wand, works the same way. There is also eye gaze, which just works by focusing his eyes on parts of the screen. If he is still pretty new on the trach though, his speech still may improve. We've had many people in rehab who still have very soft voices when they are new to a trach but can get quite a bit louder after they have had it for awhile and practice speaking.

[my4helpers]

I hope his voice gets stronger. He's had his trach since Sept. 2010 though. He has great head control so that's a plus!

[SkiMama]

Therapy should be able to order cushions direct from the supplier for him. I can't believe that all he has is a thin pad - our facility has many styles of cushions for pt use and most of them are ROHO as another poster described. Maybe the family can buy one for him if the facility won't get proper cushions - the OT/PT can order it. You will do better in price to order one through therapy directly.