Wheelchair Review - Foldalite Pro

Photo courtesy of Careco https://www.careco.co.uk/

Wheelchair type:  Non-industry type pavement scooter (class 2/unclassified)

Features: Light, Take seconds to fold

Flaws: Non-industry product so can't be officially used on transport (can't be tied down but can be folded into the luggage) There are ways of configuring a non-configurable chair.

One of the reasons I have owned so many chairs is that I could not and have not got used to the idea that I would always need a big chair and I also felt the chair was a 'burden'. When I would see people in nice little zippy chairs they could wheel about by themselves and pack I got serious wheelchair envy. A chair for a person with even intermittent but painful long-term conditions is often just plain ugly and burdensome! I purchased a Foldalite in a desperate attempt to get away (even briefly) from the big powerchair options and think I might be able to get some additional freedom. There is a lot of good I can say about my experience with this chair and there is also a lot I can say about this chair!

My personal experience with this chair is that it is easy to use, small, neat, cute and very practical. The chair will require some level of driving skills, however! If you are not a confident driver, live in the country or don't have anyone to help you train in how to use this chair it could actually be a touch dangerous. Having said that if you are used to prompting a fairly lame mid-range rear-wheel drive-in where and when to go - you won't find this chair difficult to adapt to and it can actually manage some terrains better than larger chairs - if it is driven exceptionally well! One thing I did enjoy about using this chair was how tiny and unobtrusive it was - I even got a compliment from the doctor about this!


Adapting the chair to my needs

Things I did to this chair in order to adapt it to my needs were:

• Put a Harley backrest in for side-support 
• Attached a universal headrest 
• Bough an attendant attachment 
• Took off the flip-up footrest as I was too short! 
• Put in a larger Jay Cushion
• Put a telephone attachment of types 

So, the chair could be adapted but in the end, there were so many attachments it had lost it's fundamental basic attraction (being a lightweight chair that could easily fold)! I thought it would be better if I wanted to use a 'folding' chair to return to my Alber/Invacare Esprit which although heavy could carry all of the above but still 'fold' if needed. Actually, my husband did find this chair hard to fold and often got in a slight temper with it so I wanted to avoid him getting in a bad mood over it. This is mainly because the arms have to be folded back before it can collapse. My husband never quite got the hang of this as his memory is terrible and I heard him sling the chair quite heavily into place a few times as a result! 

My personal advice

If you are going to go for this chair and you have tried the chair and read all of the above then I think you are going to love it! However, my personal advice about this chair is to cough up the extra monies and go for the Foldalite Trekker which basically is a larger version of this chair but with larger back wheels and possibly better motors. It certainly rides smoother and all of the feature you don't get on this you do get on a Foldalite Trekker. It also has some great additional features such as a USB charger and a variable speed setting with LCD screen which make this chair a non-industry second to none! It's also nice to be able to use your fold-up chair in a wide variety of settings including a little bit of off-road area because you never know what you might fancy doing on holiday! The Trekker certainly will cover most terrains.


Who is it for? A part-time user or longer-term user going on holiday (with adaptations)

Who is it not for? anyone needing any form of configurability except a headrest. The back does 'fold' of types but this would need to be tested according to your specific back issues.

Summary 

• Folds Easily 
• Suitable for a wide variety of terrain 
• Many add-ons available 
• Great chair for a part-time user 
• Good battery life/quick to charge