New chair sits well with patients, staff

A special wheelchair saves people strain in the hospital.

Andrew Kantor

Indignity normally awaits 63-year-old David McCullough at Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital, where he goes for his thrice-weekly treatment for some unhealed sores.

Paralyzed from the waist down for 32 years -- he lost a gunfight in Roanoke, he explained -- McCullough used to have only a couple of ways to get from his wheelchair to the exam table.

A big man, although not overweight, McCullough needed to be lifted onto the exam table by two or more nurses. The alternative was to be hoisted by a canvas harness and slung "like a side of beef," in the words of Mark Holben, a health services adviser for the Wound Care Center.

McCullough clearly appreciated the Chair-A-Table, a new device being tested by Carilion that avoids the need for employees to lift patients onto a table.

"It saves a lot of arm straining," said McCullough, who tries to help lift himself, he said. And compared with having nurses or a harness lift him onto the table, "This here's 100 percent better," he said.

Finding a better way to move people isn't simply about dignity or convenience. It's about health -- specifically that of the nurses who usually lift McCullough and other nonambulatory patients.

"I know nurses whose careers have been ended as a result of back injuries," said Dr. James Foster, a surgeon and Carilion employee who works at the Wound Care Center.

But the Chair-a-Table would eliminate the need for patients to move from their chairs to the table. It is a two-piece system that includes a wheelchair and a specially designed docking station in an exam room.

For most patients, that docking station works like a typical exam table. But if a patient is paralyzed or too heavy to move, he's put into the special wheelchair that locks into the base. The wheelchair's sides, arms and wheels then snap off, and the entire contraption can be raised up to 40 inches, then reclined to become an exam table.

It was designed by Willis Martin, a retired dermatologist from Rocky Mount, N.C., who saw the problems his less-mobile clients had. He retired to pursue his invention. Once manufactured, the devices could cost $15,000 to $20,000 each.

Right now, though, there's only a single prototype -- the one being tested at Carilion. The hospital began its trial in mid-July, and Foster said testing will probably continue for another four to eight weeks. At that point he'll have enough information to give detailed feedback to the company. (A couple of items so far: The back would be more comfortable if it were curved, and it would be nice if the arms and wheels came off automatically, like a Transformer toy.)

Even at this point, though, Foster is impressed.

"This is sort of a grass-roots, down-home, simple application that's relevant to a lot of people."

The Chair-A-Table is one way to make life easier for patients and safer for the hospital's staff. And with more obese Americans than ever being treated, "We're simply anticipating the future of the American patient," Foster said.