Wheelchair provision shapes a person’s independence, participation and quality of life, yet few physiotherapists and occupational therapists get formal training in it. Foundations of Wheelchair Provision is a new 8-course programme that gives you a structured, evidence-based grounding, from assessment principles through to manual, power assist and power mobility systems.
Wheelchair provision sits at the intersection of clinical reasoning, biomechanics and technology, yet many physiotherapists and occupational therapists receive little formal training in it during their entry-level education. This new Foundations of Wheelchair Provision programme from Physiopedia Plus (Plus) is built to close that gap, taking you from foundational assessment principles through to the full range of manual, power assist and power mobility systems.
The 8 courses build progressively, each one developing the clinical reasoning skills introduced in the previous course:
- Introduction to the Foundations of Wheelchair Provision establishes the global framework for wheelchair provision: why structured, people-centred services matter, who delivers them, and what the evidence shows.
- Comprehensive Evaluation in Wheelchair Provision overviews the client interview, physical assessment and body measurements that underpin every successful prescription.
- Categories of Wheelchair and Seating Systems provides a high-level map of the equipment landscape, from off-the-shelf mobility aids to individually configured complex rehabilitation technology.
- Foundations and Principles of Seating and Positioning Systems describes the importance of pelvic alignment, pressure management, cushion materials and positioning components.
- Ultra Lightweight Manual Wheelchairs provides a comprehensive overview of how these chairs are defined, constructed, set up and matched to the individual user.
- Tilt-in-Space and Dependent Manual Wheelchairs teaches clinical indications, biomechanical principles, and feature-matching for this category of complex rehab technology.
- Wheelchair Power Assist and Add-On Systems describes the technologies that sit between manual and full power mobility, and when each is indicated.
- Power Mobility Fundamentals overviews power wheelchair and scooter provision, drive wheel configurations, power seating functions and feature matching.
Every course is built from instructor-led video teaching and evidence-based reading pages, giving you both the “how” and the “why” behind each clinical decision.
The programme is led by Angie Kiger (MEd, ATP, SMS), whose background brings something genuinely different to the Plus curriculum usually taught by physiotherapists. Angie trained originally as a recreation therapist. She is a certified Assistive Technology Professional (ATP) and Seating and Mobility Specialist (SMS), with more than 25 years of clinical experience across inpatient, outpatient, school and community settings, working with clients from infancy through adulthood. She has taught extensively at national and international conferences, served as an adjunct instructor at George Mason University, and is the founder of Adaptation Labs, LLC, where she consults on assistive technology, clinical education and digital strategy across the healthcare and mobility sectors.
For a physiotherapy or occupational therapy audience, learning wheelchair provision through the lens of a recreational therapist and ATP is a chance to see familiar clinical questions from outside the usual disciplinary frame: how equipment decisions connect to participation and quality of life, not only to impairment and function. It’s a useful reminder that good wheelchair provision is inherently interdisciplinary, and that some of the deepest expertise in the field sits outside physiotherapy and occupational therapy altogether.
Each course also integrates activities powered by the Physiopedia AI assistant (PAI), giving you a way to actively apply what you have studied rather than simply reading and watching. These PAI activities include case-based simulations, where PAI presents information about a wheelchair user, and you work through the specific topic at hand. For example feature-matching a seating system or identifying the appropriate manual wheelchair category to reach an optimal recommendation. Because PAI draws exclusively from the course videos and evidence-based reading pages, all of which is human-reviewed, you can be confident that the activities reinforce the same evidence base as the rest of the programme, rather than introducing outside or unverified information.
Wheelchair provision has a direct and lasting impact on a wheelchair user’s independence, participation and quality of life, yet it’s an area where many rehabilitation professionals are left to learn on the job. The Foundations of Wheelchair Provision programme was built to change that, pairing structured, evidence-based teaching with the perspective of a specialist whose career has been built around getting this right. Whether you are approaching wheelchair provision for the first time or looking to put a firmer clinical framework around skills you have already picked up, this programme offers a clear, evidence-based place to start.
This article was written by one of our course instructors...
Stacy Schiurring
DPT
Learning Architect, Physical Therapist
Physiopedia Plus