The International Society of Wheelchair Professionals (ISWP): A resource aiming to improve wheelchair services worldwide

Abstract

Rehabilitation conferences often have an opening theme of 'look how far we have come', but the closing message is 'look how far we have to go'. This was true for the 2018 European Seating Symposium (EES), in Dublin, Ireland focusing on mobility and postural support devices. 'Before and after' pictures of products over the last 30 years suggest that technology has become more available in more contexts, including a recent wave of DIY technology with the ubiquity of 3D printing and scanning tools to produce custom equipment. The impressive evolution of this technology is not the whole story; in practice, many people do not have access, and policy and training efforts related to both service and rehabilitation equipment are often inadequate to ensure users receive appropriate products (MacLachlan et al., 2018). This disparity will increase as those who require assistive technology (AT) will double by 2050, to 2 billion users. Meanwhile, 90% of users do not have access, and live in less-resourced settings (World Health Organization (WHO), 2018). Addressing this disparity is the aim of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, signed by 187 countries worldwide, and Sustainable Development Goals, that ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all, at all ages (UN, 2006). In May 2018, a World Health Assembly resolution was adopted by the UN member states to develop, implement and strengthen policies and programs to improve access to AT. The need for wheelchairs is just as great. The WHO suggests that 68 million people need wheelchairs in lessresourced settings. The problem is multi-faceted, but a core barrier is lack of access to appropriate training, including for occupational therapists, and limited capacity to provide wheelchairs worldwide. An appropriate wheelchair can prevent secondary health complications, enhance quality of life, and facilitate access to human rights such as education, healthcare, and employment (WHO, 2008).

Final Year Students’ Knowledge on Basic Manual Wheelchair Provision: The State of Occupational Therapy Programs in Colombia

“…Online up-to-date opportunities include those offered by the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals and the Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) offered by Physiopedia in English and French [35]. In addition, the university professors could base the strengthening of the content and learning activities, on the Seating and Mobility Academic Resource Toolkit (SMART; http:// smart.wheelchairnetwork.org/) and its Academic Training Partners community offered by the ISWP which has some resources in Spanish [10,36,37]. Instructors and programs can consider integrating the new content using blended methodologies (online + in − person), which have been proven to have an increase in knowledge for manual wheelchair training [17,18,38].…”

“…In order to address this challenge, local higher education institutions are called upon to educate and equip rehabilitation professionals, among others, with the tools to meet the provision needs for assistive technology, including wheelchairs [6]. Supporting competency development of providers is cited as one of the top ten priority actions from a recent international "Wheelchair Stakeholders Meeting" supported by USAID, World Learning [9], and the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals, a global organization with a mission to provide wheelchair users worldwide with the best technology and service [10].…”

“…Occupational therapists (OTs) are recognized as professionals for whom "assistive technology provision is a core competency" and thus should receive adequate training to meet the mobility needs of people with disabilities through adequate provision [11]. However, global evidence suggests that wheelchair-related content currently taught is not consistent and may be limited, both in high-income [12,13] and LMIC countries alike [14,15], albeit facing different challenges, despite development and dissemination of open-source capacity-building resources for wheelchair services [10,[16][17][18]. Nonetheless, some progress has been reported by rehabilitation training programs including occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT), and prosthetics and orthotics (P&O) training in certain regions [19,20].…”

Wheelchair service provision education for healthcare professional students, healthcare personnel and educators across low- to high-resourced settings: a scoping review protocol

“…One such organization the World Health Organization (WHO), has developed the Guidelines for the provision of Manual wheelchairs in less resourced-settings and a series of Wheelchair Service Training Packages (WHO WSTPs) to support the training of personnel involved in wheelchair service provision worldwide [6,[28][29][30]. More recently, the WHO published the "Training of Trainers" to provide the necessary knowledge, competencies and skills among those who deliver wheelchair services [28,31]. In 2015, the International Society for Wheelchair Professionals (ISWP), was formed with the aim to serve as a global resource for wheelchair service standards and provision through advocacy, education, standards, evidence-based practice, innovation and a platform for information exchange [31,32].…”

Development of a toolkit for educators of the wheelchair service provision process: the Seating and Mobility Academic Resource Toolkit (SMART)

“…Even in the remaining two states of integration, i.e., first-time implementation and improvement, both the value of and the need for resources have been identified as a means of overcoming these challenges [14,18]. Recognizing the variety of challenges that exist, yet also the variety of expertise and resources that are available globally, the objective of this study, conducted by the ISWP, was to develop a Seating and Mobility Academic Resource Toolkit (SMART) [19]. The goal of this dynamic toolkit is to provide educators with a means of sharing and accessing resources that will inform the integration and enhancement of wheelchair content into university rehabilitation programs and ultimately contribute to the development of a competent workforce of wheelchair service personnel.…”