the concept of "Castor Control" (wheelchair driving techniques)

0:01 [Music] question what do doorways baseboards and your backyard all have in common well it's something i like to call caster control i've been trying to figure out a way to make this video for quite some time and well i just figured i'd pick up the camera and start recording it what we're talking about today is sort of an advanced driving technique or something i like to call caster control when you have a power chair you're gonna have either two or four casters in addition to your drive wheels for example on this forefront we have these giant caster wheels on the back and as you move around they flip around in a pretty large circle and a lot of times they'll hit walls

0:47 break door jams and or get you stuck in the yard there's a really simple technique if it's stashed in the back of your mind that will help you out quite a bit let me see if i can explain so as you're driving around normally your caster wheels are pointing backwards because you're moving forward well let's say you get part way through a door jamb like this and then you decide oh hey i need to back up and go into the other room if you just pull straight back on your joystick you don't really have any control over when these caster wheels are going to flip around sometimes they will flip one direction sometimes both the same direction sometimes in opposite directions and for example when you do that they may flip like this and you'll smash into the door jamb and then it can push your chair over this way and slam your arm rest into the wall or the door or whatever

1:32 the more you're running around on a power chair you'll slowly become more aware of what your caster wheels are doing depending on which direction your joystick is pressed so let's say i want to go through this door and i want to back up but i don't want to hit the door jamb all you have to do is make a very slight motion to the left or right i'm going to exaggerate here just to show you but if you notice here if i turn to the left now my caster wheels have already flipped and if i continue to back up i know exactly where they are because i've preset the direction they're facing and it doesn't take a motion that's very big at all so if i stop right in the middle of this door jamb i just have to move to the side ever so slightly to get those wheels to start turning

2:18 and then as i back up they will predictably flip around and i can plan for that space that's needed this comes in particularly handy if you're using a sort of small bathroom area like this now there's just enough space here for me to fit through just fine but depending on when the caster wheels flip back and forth will make a difference as to whether i hit the cabinet or not if i just back straight up the caster wheels can flip unpredictably and then smash into the cabinet like that so same thing here just do a very slight movement to one side to set those caster wheels and then you can back up and you probably also notice that sometimes when you're stopped and you

3:04 try to go straight at full speed the caster wheels will violently flip around and kind of shake your chair so let's say i'm backing up across the living room here and then i want to suddenly go forward so i just push forward on the joystick and i have no idea when the caster wheels are going to flip but when they do the chair will kind of violently shake one way or the other the faster you go the less of an issue that is but if you're using a lap desk or something like that and you've got like some drinks or something sitting on your lap or even just your phone or whatever that there we go that side to side motion can really cause problems and honestly i'm so used to doing this now that i'm having a hard time

3:50 not paying attention to how the casters are are turned so if i want to back up right now very slight side motion then back up and you're good same thing switching direction going forward very slight side motion and then forward and it's super predictable now we can even take this a step further as well something i actually noticed that i was doing while i was filming this was as i come to a stop i'll turn ever so slightly just as i stop then when i start moving again i don't have to think about it so as i'm going straight here as i come to a stop i'll just slightly turn like that and now as i'm stopped i know my caster wheels are pointing this way and i can just back straight up and i know exactly what they're going to do and you may still get that side to side

4:37 motion i mean you can see as i'm backing up the chair will still shake a little bit but i know exactly when it's going to happen so i can plan for it and i also know which direction the chair is going to pitch because if i go the other way like this now i know when i back up the chair is going to wobble in the opposite direction as those flip around so i can be expecting it now the other area this is a really big deal is when you're running around in grass or gravel or other things like that if you're going straight and then stop and you want to back up don't just pull backwards either go forward and do a slow loop or if the grass that you're in isn't too deep you can kind of do the same little side shifting but it's usually better when you're in the grass and you've stopped moving to keep moving forward or whatever

5:23 direction your caster is already pointing and then make a big sweeping circle let's go out front and try that it's been over 90 degrees here for a couple of weeks so the grass is pretty much dead at this point it's not going to be a perfect illustration because i don't think i can get stuck in dead dry grass but at least i can show you the concept as we're moving straight forward here let's stop right here and for whatever reason i decide i want to go the opposite direction now if i just pull straight back on the joystick those caster wheels are going to try and dig in and especially on a six wheel chair if this grass is very tall or you're in gravel or something like that the action of those spinning around will dig into whatever surface you're sitting in and you can potentially get stuck

6:09 so instead of backing straight up like say i want to go the other direction it's best to go forward turn and make a big circle like this that way your caster wheels are never flipping around thus not digging into the surface you're in so on surfaces like this it's best to just basically never never go the opposite direction that you're already going just make a big loop [Music] actually let me grab a six wheeled chair out of the garage i think i can illustrate that a little bit better okay here we have a jazzy 600 es which is probably one of the better examples of chairs that is not designed to go off-road and get stuck super easily now i'm going pretty much straight forward

6:55 if i want to back up you'll see the caster wheels will kind of swivel around and get stuck in the grass a little bit again the grass isn't super tall but the concept is still there there we go you can see how the drive tire was spinning a little bit and i was getting a little bit bound up so same thing with this chair has almost no ground clearance caster wheels are sticking out on all sides just keep moving in the direction that you're already facing and then make a big sweeping turn and you won't get stuck nearly as easily now back here on a regular hard packed surface the same thing applies

7:41 if you uh if you're near doorways and things like that just take a very slight side movement and you'll see that your caster wheels both flip in opposite directions but now they're very predictable and you can back up or change direction without too much of a problem eventually as you're using one of these chairs you'll get more and more used to this and just keeping in the back of your head where the caster wheels are pointing sort of becomes second nature now the very first power chair i ever had was an invacare tdx si2 which is a six wheeled chair and at the time i was living in an apartment that had pretty much wall-to-wall carpeting and that chair did okay i mean as terrible as those invacare chairs were the way the bearings were and the

8:27 geometry of the casters and things like that did pretty well on carpet but also because it was an invacare it was constantly in new motion shop out of a year they had it for seven months doing various repairs and they gave me a pro mobile c500 as a loaner chair now when that thing was delivered to my apartment i hopped in and i was running around and it's sort of like this forefront is you've got giant casters in the back and your drive wheels up in the front and i was noticing as i moved around the carpet when those casters flipped they would violently shake the whole chair and constantly knock everything off my lap or i'd smash into door jams and i just couldn't understand it i was like what the heck why would they design a chair like this is this how they're supposed to be but the weird thing was i didn't even

9:13 realize it at the time after using it for about a month or so those problems stopped happening and i couldn't explain why it turns out the lizard part of my brain was realizing that uh these caster wheels flipping in random directions are what's causing the issue therefore when i was running around i instinctively just started using the joystick a little bit differently so what that looks like with the joystick here normally if you just back straight up that's what i'm talking about the caster wheels are going to flip whatever direction they want and uh yeah so all you have to do is when you're backing up just do one of these sort of maneuvers very slightly to one side and then back and that sets your caster wheels so it doesn't really take very much

10:00 straight forward slight side motion back up and you're good i've mentioned this concept to a few people that i know and immediately they were like oh yeah that makes sense now that you're saying it out loud and they kind of had the same experience the chair would you know shake around or violently wobble as the casters flipped but then over time they realized that it wasn't happening as much so it's kind of a difficult concept to explain or show real world examples but hopefully this at least puts the idea in your head and you can kind of think about that as you're running around as i'm turning to the right my rear casters are also pointing to the right as i turn to the left they're also pointing to the left so as i've stopped right now i've stopped as i'm turning without looking at the casters i can tell you they're pointing at a 45 degree angle back that direction

10:47 see so it's just something you so it's just something you keep in the back of your mind and you don't really have to think about it after a while so i'm turning right now and again if i stop the casters will be slightly at an angle since they're in an angle if i want to back down the hallway now i can just back straight up and do it because the casters are already halfway turned and they're not going to violently flip anyways hopefully that helps hopefully it made sense um yeah there you go [Music] you