I’ll never forget my first year in the schools. I had come from a primarily adult outpatient setting. There were lots of changes entering into the school system, but one of the big ones was wrapping my head around all of the different equipment options. How I wish I would have had it all in one easy place to find.
So, that means I am doing just that! In this post you will find all of the different gait trainer resources in one place. You can also look at my posts for stander resources and supportive and adapted classroom seating resources in one place.
Gait Trainer Options
There are several different gait trainer options to check out and choose from. If you have a vendor in your area they are the perfect people to get a hold of. Often times, you will have the option to trial different gait trainers if they have them on hand. Here are some options for you to consider. There are links to the different companies that make these gait trainers included.
Rifton – Pacer, E-Pacer, Tram
Prime Engineering – KidWalk
R82 – Mustang, Pony
Meywalk – 2000, Miniwalk
Ormesa – Grillo, Dynamico
Instruction Videos
As with many pieces of adapted equipment, there may be different ways to set it up and different parts included. Your vendor can always help you with this, but it is also nice to have websites with instruction videos that you can reference in a moments notice.
Below are links to different companies YouTube channels that include instruction videos for different pieces of adapted equipment including gait trainers.
Rifton – There YouTube channel can help you with questions about their gait trainers.
R82 – They have a YouTube channel that can help answer your adapted equipment needs.
Don’t forget that accessing many of the different companies websites will allow you to download an owners manual for equipment as well.
Research
As therapists we need our practice to be evidence based. If we are going to implement adaptive equipment, we want to have research regarding it’s use. Below are links to research on the benefits of using gait trainers.
Prime Engineering – Prime Engineering has a page with research regarding the benefits of gait trainers.
Rifton – Rifton has an entire section of the website dedicated to evidence based practice. There are several resources here for you to browse.
Justification
Often times letters of medical necessity are required for different pieces of equipment to be purchased by insurance companies. There are several resources out there to help you with writing letters to justify the equipment for home.
Rifton – Rifton has a page dedicated to helping you with letters of medical necessity that is worth checking out.
Prime Engineering – Prime Engineering also has a section of it’s website to help you with any justification.
Do you know of any other great resources? Share in the comments if you do I’d love to have more!