Tips for First-Time Wheelchair Pushers

Latent Existence speaks from experience on how to push a wheelchair, and more importantly, how to treat someone who is in a wheelchair.

Today my sister used a wheelchair for the first time. (We share the same inherited mitochondrial condition.) Her husband has little experience of pushing a wheelchair so I tried to give him some tips, which resulted in what I have written below. Believe it or not there is actually some skill involved in pushing a wheelchair and keeping the person in it comfortable. These are just observations from my own experience of being in a wheelchair pushed by someone else, but everyone is different. If you’re pushing a wheelchair for someone new then you should ask them if they have any preferences.

The tips are invaluable, but they were also supplemented by the commenters at the post, and by commenters at Metafilter who have experience in that area.


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"If someone speaks to you when they should speak to your passenger, tell them so."
Yeah, I get this all the time at the supermarket check-out. I tell the clerk: 'I just drive. He's the one with the money.'
Maybe if I wore a black ninja outfit . . .
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