An intermediate online course emphasizes the consideration required and analysis the Specialist in Driving must conduct regarding each client’s functional mobility with or without a mobility device, as well as their personal vehicle.

The course, “106 Functional Mobility and Vehicle: Evaluation of Functional Mobility and the Vehicle as it Relates to a Driving Evaluation,” is available through Adaptive Mobility Services and is presented by Carol Blackburn, OTR, CDRS, and Susan Pierce, OTR, FAOTA, SCDCM, CDRS. The Adaptive Mobility Services website states that the course outlines specific therapy techniques and strategies for analyzing impairments stemming from age or disability as they relate to driving through lecture, written material, and application in pictorial and video presentation of real clients.

According to the site, upon completion of the course, participants will gain a variety of abilities, including the ability to pinpoint methods to analyze an individual’s functional mobility as necessary to evaluate the occupation of driving, identify how mobility devices may affect the outcomes in a driver evaluation, and cite specific issues to be considered and methods to be used for evaluating a manual and motorized wheelchair or scooter for safe functional mobility and safe loading/unloading into a vehicle.

Additionally, participants will recognize the importance of the person-vehicle-mobility device interface, identify wheelchair features and transfers techniques designed to support safe moving in and out of a vehicle, as well as clinical tools and strategies for evaluation of physical skills for driving. Citing issues with wheelchairs that may impede safety in functional mobility for driver independence and considerations in client factors and performance skills that play a key role during evaluation of functional mobility and the vehicle are also among the course’s objectives.

For more information and to enroll, click here

[Source: Adaptive Mobility Services]