Can I have a Cadillac?

Soon Luke will be out of the Early Intervention program, when he turns 3 years old. In preparation for that we have been ordering various equipment and things that we can use with him here at home for therapy since he will start having therapy at the school in town instead of Easter Seals. One of the things we have been talking about getting him is his own walker. Right now his “swivel walker” is on loan from Easter Seals. We were waiting to get his own until we knew what kind would work best for him when he turned 3.


Well the other day we tried a different style of walker with Luke. It is lighter weight than the one he has now and has a different look. It opens in front like his current walker and makes a “U” shape, but it doesn’t have the extra bars in back that his current walker has. There were two main bars, one on top and one on bottom as a base. The bar on top could be adjusted to slide forward or back depending on where it works best for each child. The handle bars were also different, instead of being flat or part of the upper bar, they were separate so you could adjust them if you wanted. They were shaped like an “L”, and you could rotate the “”L around to the best location.

So we spent PT time experimenting with this walker. First we left it the way it was, where the upper bar and lower bar were pretty even and the handle bar “L” was down. The result was a run-a-way Luke, with the handle bar down all his weight went forward and he took off….going so fast he started tripping over his feet. Next, we tried shifting the upper bar by sliding it back. In the end the bottom bar stuck out about a foot in front of where Luke walked and the upper bar stuck out about a foot behind Luke. It reminded me of Cadillac, with a big nose and big trunk.

This seemed to slow Luke down a little and give him some more control. But, it still wasn’t the best…so we experimented with the handle bar “L”. We had been doing it straight down, so we moved them straight up….which worked but looked a little uncomfortable for Luke. Then we put them out to the side….which made Luke look like he was spreading his wings….so not only did he have a big front end and back end…but he was wide now too. Finally we tried rotating the handle bars towards the middle or inside of the walker…this seemed to work the best. Luke had a lot of control in his turns and speed. I think we finally found the right combo.

New “devices” are always fun to try, but sometimes it takes a while to get it right. After all of the experimenting though I think it was worth it. Before we tried it Luke’s PT and I weren’t so sure it would be the better style of walker for him, but he seemed to do really well with this new style walker. So now we may just order him a “Cadillac”. Won’t all his friends be jealous?