Rolling seat / rollator is there anything to know before buying?

I've decided to finally break down and buy a either a rolling seat thing or a light portable chair. Is there anything to know before buying one of these?

I've avoided getting one, but doing errands and shopping inevitably leads to a crash, and taking a sitting break at regular intervals should help. I don't want a huge Rascal type thing, no room for that in my apartment and it complicates going anywhere outside.

I won't be using it to assist in walking, it's to stop and sit down in public places where's there's no seating. I'm in a large, filthy city where most outdoor (and much indoor) seating has been removed due to its attractiveness to drug users, so if you need to sit down here it's best to bring your own seat.

The one advantage of a roller-chair (rollator?) is that people understand they're for someone who has considerable trouble getting around, rather than, oh, a street performer or just an eccentric random.

 

That you can get very good ones for a fraction of the new price by buying secondhand? The rollator my mum had was priced at nearly £300 new, but we bought it for something like £23 from a Gumtree seller. It was good quality model that had only been used for 18 months.

Maybe pay attention to the seat back when choosing models. This will probably be important for you, but not all rollators have a good one. If you have a fairly long stride, you probably won't want one with a box underneath the seat for carrying things either (they can be a bit of an obstruction if you haven't got a shuffling gait). Weight and ease of folding down might also be factors.

Another argument for buying secondhand is that it's easy to make a mistake with the first one you buy. Until you've tried using them in the real world, you've no experience of what to look for to match your needs. You don't feel the loss so much if it didn't cost much in the first place.

 

PS: also look at the wheels. As with powerchairs, the smaller the wheels the less comfortable a run it's likely to be outdoors.

 

If this is something that you would put in a car boot look at how it folds . Rollators can take up a lot of space, so the folding mechanism can make a big difference.
My daughter's rollator has a fixed backrest bar , my mother in law's has a folding backrest bar- this makes it easier to put in a car as it takes up less room ..

 

Have you had a look at seat sticks? They're walking sticks that fold out into tripod shaped seats eg: https://www.clearwellmobility.co.uk/stick-seat.html (not endorsing that company or stick, just trying to find a site that shows the stick folded and unfolded). They might be worth considering if you can find a stick that's light enough not to produce PEM just by carrying it. You can also find leaning seats which have a flip down seat on top of a walking stick (eg: https://www.walkingstickcollection.com/item/347/SeatSticksHikingPoles/Black-Foldaway-Flipstick.html), but I find them too exhausting to use because they don't relieve you of supporting your body weight in the same way the tripod seats do.

Some advantages of the tripod seats are that they don't take up much room, they double as a walking stick if needed and are easier to take with you than a rollator. But they don't offer back support and can be dangerous to sit on on uneven ground or if you don't have good balance (due to only having three legs). They can be awkward to hold if you're trying to carry something else, and they're definitely not as comfortable as a cushioned rollator seat.

It's a tricky problem when you need to sit down often to relieve the OI symptoms, but constantly sitting down and standing up can also bring on PEM (for me anyway). Hope you find a good solution.

 

I’ve a tried out a few of these for grocery shopping. I had some thoughts, as far as I can remember very much in line with @Kitty suggested considerations

The wheels need to be larger and bounce. So as to perform better on the roll and reduce pain from constant vibrations.

Most wheels are quite rubbish quality. Too small. Hard or overly soft. The foam type ones are better than the hard plastic but still not great for vibrations. Rubber is optimal for shock absorption. This consideration applies even where not putting weight on the device. Vibrations travel up your arm from even a very light hold. It’s tiring and uncomfortable.

Although I am not tall I still found that it was hard to get the appropriate height for push bars. These are usually set a bit lower. As people are expected use the bars to transfer weight off of their feet so may be leaning down on the handles. If you’re not doing that, you’ll want it set higher as did I. These bars are adjustable, but most commonly by increment only and these points may not be very close together, making it difficult to hit a really comfortable hight.

I used these devices to lightly balance and to carry stuff. I found elbow high with me standing up straight to be the right height. I rested hands or wrists or forearm on top so I could vary my hold to make it more comfortable pushing over bumps on hard ground.

Also I don’t think I have a wide stride but I constantly bashed my knees and feet into the basket on one and seat on another. Maybe because they’re not designed to walk fully up right with or maybe because stuff for disabled people usually not that well designed.


If you don’t need a roller for stability of a specific variety,
I’d say the three wheelers can be alot better than the fours, there seems more space to accommodate a fully standing person with an average stride. And they’re more easily manoeuvred up and down curbs.

But you do have to find a good seat also and there are more models to choose from in the four wheeler variety as far as I could see. The seat must have a comfortable back rest that hits not too low and not too high so that it provides some decent lower back support. That’s not something I could find so I didn’t use mine for sitting.

The seat would need to be at a height where your thighs are pretty much horizontal with feet flat on the floor to be any kind of substitute for a bench or a chair and provide any real support or muscle relief. But mostly the seats are much higher and more like the experience of propping your bum on the edge of a wall. The reason for this is that a lower seat would get in the way of actually being able to walk without bumping into it. Because unfortunately disability equipment makers haven’t looked at all the billions of buggies for children which somehow manage to overcome this problem just fine. So anyway some better models have an adjustable seats so you can leave it high for a brief uncomfortable perch and push it down for a, relatively, enjoyable rest. Or flip up seats, more common on the three wheelers maybe.

Oh I forgot to say earlier….

If you’re of lower or average weight consider opting for an aluminium version over a steel one for the weigh savings. Because you’ll be lifting it probably more often than you anticipate and even for a few seconds it all adds up. I bought all mine secondhand and there are many more steel ones around as cheaper to produce. If I were in the market for a new one I’d probably choose an aluminium version.

Two more things I forgot to add…

The breaks need to be in a good position for you to easily hold or reach them and function smoothly. Good luck with that one. Also these things have break wires all over the place. Manufacturers could tuck them away but they don’t. Because you know.

For anyone on the heavier side who wants or needs to lean on the device properly for leg support suspension is an available option. I don’t know how good it would be. For anyone on the lighter or middling side I was told it’s not available. But that may have changed since I last looked.


Conclusion.

I would recommend looking at quite a few online pictures and videos and wherever you might find them the invaluable resource of explainers or reviews by experienced disabled people. If you can try some out in a mobility store even better.

 

W

Well, there's more involved than I'd thought. I had a feeling that the one model of this I see now and then probably won't work out.
Where can one shop for these in the USA? I'm only familiar with pharmacy chains, which probably have all of one model, chosen because it's covered by Medicare (US national old age/disability insurer). So the obvious place is probably wrong.

 

I live in the UK, so I'm not sure.

But a good place to search here is eBay (especially the secondhand listings), and local free ads services for people making occasional sales of things such as furniture they no longer need. That does usually involve collecting it yourself and handing over cash, but at least you get to see it before you pay.

The other good way to find mobility gear here is car boot sales—if you can access them, which can be a big "if". You may have a different name for them in the US, but basically it's people doing this:



I managed to buy a folding wheelchair for my mum, even though I was using a powered wheelchair myself and couldn't carry it. Fella was more than happy to insist his teenage son put his phone down for a minute to push it to the car park for me.

 

I’m sorry I certainly didn’t mean to overwhelm or put you off of trying whatever equipment that might be accessible for you.

The reason I gave so much information is just because I personally hit the various issues that I listed above.
However I was always going to be a borderline case for using something like this because of the level of severity that I am at. Such that I use a wheelchair now. Although I am hoping to find another walker for indoors as I sometimes need half way support between walking unaided and wheeling it.

When I used these trolley walkers I was moderate/severe with ME and have become only more severe. So mine only one certain perspective. Probably I’ve given you a worst case list of concerns. Stuff that may not affect you much or at all.

I also have very high pain levels and injuries from various accidents and some joint hyperextension that makes it more difficult for me to use this type of aid.

If you’re more mildly affected by ME than you could be and fatigue-able but not too exhausted to be upright in your current presentation, the more likely you are the find this type of equipment useful.

Even though it was never the best fit for me it helped enormously getting my shopping in person.

 

Don't be sorry! That's the sort of info I need so that I don't go through rounds of buying and trying stuff that turns out to be unusable. I probably wouldn't see that right away, because the trip to go get something will eat enough energy that I'm even more brain-softened than usual.

 

OK, I see a problem right away:

Edit: I see the problem, I did a search for "rollator" not "rollator with seat". But this is the sort of addled cognition that makes everything more complex that it should be. Trying again with different search terms.

Some (or all?) of the things described as rollator seem to be walkers, not portable seats. I don't really need the wheel thing to walk with, it won't increase the time I can be upright. I need a portable place to sit down that also has wheels so I'm not slinging it over my shoulder.

 

There might be different conventions across different countries too, which doesn't help!