The rest of our group arrived over the weekend – everyone who is coming is now here, including six occupational therapy students from St. Catherine University.

And now, meet Juan. He is a delightful 15 year old who remembered Sammie and Tamara from a past wheelchair fitting. Juan has really tight hamstring muscles – the big muscle that crosses both the hip and the knee joint. This means that he cannot straighten out his legs when he lies down, and in order to sit tall he must have his feet tucked under him a bit.

Today Juan and his parents learned about this dynamic with assistance from Hammie, our new teaching tool. Hammie is a simplified anatomical model that can demonstrate posture problems related to tight hamstring and hip flexor muscles in sitting and lying.

We had a chat with Juan about learning to sleep a new way at night, to help stretch out his legs and keep his back straight – he is a clever guy and agreed to work with his parents on this. We were able to refurbish his tilt in space wheelchair with new seating and a bunch of adjustments, and sent him on his way with his parents looking great!