All comprehensive wheelchair van equipment analyses are custom-tailored to clients’ individual mobility limitation(s). At a minimum, the following features and product characteristics must be evaluated for suitability with the customer’s needs.

Prior Driving and Medical Histories

It is essential to fully advise your Driver Rehab Specialist of all pertinent details of your medical history. Information such as current medications and/or dietary supplement(s) should be included. These disclosures facilitate more accurate assesments of external considerations that could be affecting your mobility capacity without your knowledge. Analyzing your driving history allows us to learn what types of equipment and driving conditions you are most comfortable with and provides insight into your overall driving capacity and behavior behind the wheel.

Physical Evaluation

Your Driver Rehab Specialist may also need to assess the relative ability of all limbs and leg/arm intercoordination, the sensation level in those areas, your neck and trunk, and your ability to maintain balance and transfer weight. Breaking response times are also likely to be evaluation, in addition to the ease with which you can collapse and store wheelchair van equipment.

Visual Assessment

Your minimal level of peripheral and direct visual acuity must be evaluated to ensure compliance with all regulatory and statutory codes. Depending on your specific diagnoses and age group, specialists may also assess your color vision, depth perception, visual scan capacity, and your eyes’ ability to function in unity.

Cognition Assessment

Minimal screens for time, person, place, and simple instructions orientation must also be conducted. Based upon your particular diagnosis, additional similar testing may be conducted. Further analyses will seek to evaluate your relative attention span, attention/concentration abilities, multi-tasking capability, and how well your brain processes visual input.

On-the-Road Assessment

Absent some overriding contraindication, all consumers must be afforded the opportunity to undergo a Behind-the-Wheel Assessment while operating one or more wheelchair vans equipped with training brakes. General research seems to indicate that those whose scores fall below a specific minimum in this area have poor driving prognoses. Individualized results have been found to deviate drastically from such statistical norms, however.

A handful of valid reasons for omitting an On-the-Road Evaluation include medical or visual conditions like seizure disorders that do not conform with minimum State requirements or a demonstrated inability to follow basic instructions. The latter condition precludes any assurance that the customer can follow directions while driving. Consequently, safe operation cannot be assured. Lacking a valid operator’s permit or driver’s license will likewise preclude participation in this test, if State law so mandates.