Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo
Helping a person who uses a wheelchair find a chair that fits their lifestyle is as important as helping someone find a pair of shoes that fit or helping someone find the right bike.
That’s the mission of the Illini Wheelchair and Scooter Clinic on the campus of the University of Illinois. The clinic is the creation of Laura Rice, an associate professor of Kinesiology and Community Health within the College of Applied Health Sciences.
The clinic began as a labor of love for Rice.
“Prior to the formal clinic, I was helping students on campus if they needed a new wheelchair, kind of just through DRES (Disability Resources & Educational Services) helping them out, but nothing was really formalized because I just didn’t have time,” said Rice, who is also interim director of the Master of Public Health (MPH) and Master of Health Administration (MHA) programs and associate director of the Center on Health, Aging, and Disability (CHAD).
[When I first moved to Illinois] “I had a 50 percent appointment at DRES, but it was helping out Jeanette Elliott, the physical therapist there,” Rice said. “Then I moved into a tenure track position and I needed to focus my time and effort on research. When I did get promoted, this was a nice opportunity where I had a bit more space to go back to that model. That’s why I started trying to formalize the clinic.”
The idea of a clinic came out of Rice’s previous work in Pittsburgh.
“I did work at a large seating clinic at the University of Pittsburgh. I felt that my interactions in the clinic with end users was really important to fuel my research. And then I also could help support the clients better because I had a strong research background,” she said.
The Illinois clinic has been open for approximately one year, operating out of Freer Hall on the Urbana-Champaign campus. The clinic helps clients select a piece of assistive technology, primarily a wheelchair or a scooter, to help them go about their day-to-day life, whether that’s going to class, going to work, or engaging with friends and family.
“We really try to provide that support so that they can do the activities that they like and they need to do in everyday life,” Rice said.
The Wheelchair and Scooter Clinic is small, and students in the MHA program help Rice with clinic policies, working with clients and helping with billing.
“We’re not part of a large health care system,” Rice said. “The (client) can contact me, and then I work with them. It’s on campus, especially for students, they don’t have to try to figure out transportation to an off-campus location. The majority of people that I work with are people in need of new devices. I’ll talk to them, we’ll do an evaluation. I work with a wheelchair vendor. An example is like, you go to a doctor, he prescribes you a medication, but he doesn’t actually give you the pills. You go to CVS to get the pills. That vendor is the one who provides the actual device in consultation with me, making those recommendations and the person’s physician, ultimately.”
After the chair arrives, Rice and her assistants help make sure it fits the client and makes sure they have proper training.
For Rice, the clinic is the culmination of marrying her research to her work as a physical therapist.
“I really wanted to be able to step back and kind of really look at like, ‘Why am I doing these things? And how can we improve?’ Because, especially for individuals with disabilities, there’s really a lack of research on different ways to support quality of life and community participation. So that is why I got into research was to have that opportunity to better understand the needs of clients I would like to serve and be able to implement those ideas.”
To contact the Wheelchair and Scooter Clinic, email wheelchair-clinic@mx.uillinois.edu.
Editor’s note:
To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
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