The Fundamental Principles of Seating and Positioning in Children with Physical Disabilities
The prescription of appropriate seating equipment for children and young people with physical disabilities is important, in order to provide an optimal seated position from which they may engage in functional activities.
Research has evidenced the benefits of adaptive seating to include improved postural alignment (Miedaner 1990; Myhr and von Wendt 1991), development of motor skills (Green and Nelham 1991), helping the prevention of fixed deformity (Pountney et al 2002) and facilitation of upper extremity function (Myhr and von Wendt 1991; Myhr et al 1995, van der Heide 2003). It is imperative that health professionals prescribing and engineers designing seating equipment are well informed regarding the fundamentalseating principles that dictate the sitting postures of children and young people and the impact they have on long term health and function.
Click the "Download the PDF" link to see the whole article.