Wheelchair Insert

Other Products: Office Chairs | ProBalance Board

CoreBalance™ Wheelchair Seating redefines the paradigm of conventional wheelchair seating by placing the naturally dynamic human body, in an equally dynamic seat.  By utilizing a flowing and responsive, yet stable and adjustable seating design, CoreBalance™ Seating encourages wheelchair users to assume posture that is optimal for both health and comfort.

Healthy sitting posture is stimulated by slight but constant movement among the core and torso muscles in our bodies.  In contrast with standard, static-position wheelchair designs which inevitably lead to muscle atrophy, CoreBalance™ Dynamic Wheelchair Seating allows user’s core and torso muscles to remain comfortably active and engaged.  By encouraging gentle muscle activation at an individually adjustable level, CoreBalance™ Seating builds strength, balance, muscle-control and mobility.

The wheelchair industry’s current approach to seat design confines the naturally dynamic human body to an unnaturally static “safe” position.  Even among the most advanced, expensive wheelchairs available, this misguided style of seat construction inevitably leads to greater muscle weakness, worsening posture and ultimately decreasing health.

Using new, patent-pending technology enthusiastically endorsed by wheelchair users as well as doctors and therapists, CoreBalance™ Dynamic Wheelchair Seating defies convention by keeping the human body in active, comfortable, and adjustable movement throughout the day.

CoreWerks’s CoreBalance™ Dynamic Wheelchair Seating allows the users’ pelvis to tilt in a safe and non-restrictive manner, encouraging ongoing activation of the muscles throughout the pelvis and spine.  Using adaptive dynamic joint technology, CoreBalance™ Seating creates an environment where the wheelchair user’s own body introduces and controls the level of seating dynamism, resulting in relaxed overall muscle tone, increased volitional muscle control, and the cessation of back/buttock pain and discomfort.

CoreBalance™ Dynamic Wheelchair Seating is based on the same CoreWerks’s Dynamic Seating Technology that is used for the CoreWerks’s CoreBalance Task Chair.

Users first notice the unique benefits of CoreBalance Dynamic Seating as the seat gradually tilts in comfortable response to their movements.  Resistance provided by the air suspension system can be easily adjusted by the user, while in use, to conform to individual preference, comfort, and activities.  Dynamic resistance attainable in the chair ranges from the static padding of a standard wheelchair, to high levels of active but controlled pelvic movement.  By adjusting and responding to the chairs resistance level, the user is naturally able to assume a posture optimal for both health and comfort.

In addition, a sliding mechanism allows the forward and backward movement of the seat’s surface relative to the adaptor base. This allows the user to vary the distance from the dynamic seat to the stationary backrest of the wheelchair, as well as to adjust the seat inclination from forward to backward tilt.

Installing CoreBalance™ Dynamic Seating is an easy, straightforward process on almost all standard wheelchair frames.  The picture above shows the installation of a wheelchair seat insert in a typical wheelchair (seat cushion has been removed for clarity).

Negative Aspects of Conventional Wheelchair Seating
Conventional wheelchair seating has created a static and restrictive environment by confining and supporting the user in a fixed position while attempting to provide comfort with excessive cushioning. Despite the implementation of static seating in all conventional wheelchair designs, this flawed approach has resulted in a restriction of movement responsible for serious health problems among wheelchair users, such as:

• Pressure ulcers
• Muscle weakness and atrophy
• Poor posture
• Decreased volitional muscle control
• Disc dehydration
• Nerve and muscle inflammation
• Muscle cramping and tightening
• Accelerated loss of functionality

Advantages of the CoreBalance Dynamic Wheelchair Seat Insert
CoreWerks believes that in addition to providing a safe and comfortable environment for the user, a properly designed wheelchair seat must also enable the user’s body to move freely, albeit in small, safe amounts.  Because of the unique therapeutic properties of CoreWerks’s CoreBalance Dynamic Seating Technology, Dynamic Wheelchair Seating helps the user to continuously activate, exercise and strengthen core and torso muscles without even being aware.

Wheelchair users will experience numerous benefits from the therapeutic seat insert, including:

• Reduction of muscle weakness and atrophy
• Loosening and lengthening of muscle fibers
• Elimination of immobility inflicted back pain
• Increased volitional muscle control
• Better nutrient metabolism of the central nervous system
• Enhanced disc hydration
• Improved posture
• Greater sense of well being

To be truly effective, these benefits must be provided in such a way that the neuromuscular system does not react to the stimulation as unnatural and intrusive. CoreBalance Dynamic Seating adapts to the user’s body and rather than forcing the body to conform to the seat. At the same time, it encourages stability through greater core muscle activation, resulting in greater mobility for the user while preserving safety and comfort.

Early users are giving the CoreWerks wheelchair insert enthusiastic praise:

"…The seat is truly fantastic!! Thank you!!!" 
Andrea, Richmond, VA