I am thinking of writing an introduction to interacting with wheelchair users

[kaberett]

Like: guidelines on when it's appropriate to touch a chair; guidelines on asking if help's wanted; guidelines on talking to someone using a chair (and therefore not at standing height) -- with the understanding that people vary. (Largely because I have come up with a rule-of-thumb about touching chairs that I am failing to phrase as a standalone post, so.)

Interested? Got things you'd like addressed?

Comments

[me_and]

"How to deal with other people not not following these suggestions"?

[batrachian]

fire?

or is that not socially acceptable.

so many rules. <.

[davidgillon]

Footplate to the Achilles, the one weapon most wheelchair users are never without...

[mair_in_grenderich]

Took me a while to remember what this made me think of, but I think it's Ben Elton's Gridlock...

[shanaqui]

I would be interested. (I'd have been more interested when I was a volunteer, because I was trained always to offer help, and that was the standard I was meant to stick to, but it was so obviously resented sometimes and... yeah.)

[inoru_no_hoshi]

Interested! Can't think of anything specific to query but have had like 5 hours of sleep because trollbrain.

[korafox]

I would most certainly be interested. This feels like a big gap in my "rules for social situations" folder (of course, as you say, paying attention to the fact that people will have different preferences).

Especially I would be interested in door etiquette (right-of-way, holding doors/pushing the automatic door button sort of thing).

[cxcvi]

Interested, yes.

Specifics... so, knowing you has basically turned my default into "assume that they'll ask for help if they need it". This has been a hard shift to make from the tradition view of "disabled people need help". so... tips and thoughts on how to make this shift (if making this shift is a thing that should be done).

[cosmolinguist]

I'm interested!

[lilliburlero]

I'd certainly be interested in this.

[jesse_the_k]

You would do a great job on this. Others have tried before you, but you bring an exceptionally thorough and specific approach to the task. Just today I asked someone to back up so I could get a rolling start over a sidewalk lip. Her response was to try to push 300+ pounds me-and-chair forward with the cane handles. (Are the cane handles magnetized? So many people think that’s the only thing to do with their hands.)

This brief and direct video does a good job on how (not) to help wheelchair users at doors

https://youtu.be/IfWQ83m_avk

no captions, but body movements & onscreen text tell the story.

Sadly the humor is not as good as it could be. I was struck by how much a picture can communicate (I look forward to your textual version.) Learning styles vary.

So, my wants:

1. Ask if help is wanted, listen to response, say what you’ll do before you do it. Presume competence.
2. Never touch before we respond¹
3. Believe what we say, we’re experts by experience².

---

1. I’ve given up on suggesting “ask permission,” since humans always want to be above average and therefore don’t need permission. ↩︎

2. I found that amazing phrase from a MIND site—do you know its origin?) ↩︎

[serene]

My partner uses a 'chair, and the following comes to mind:

1) Talk to him directly; he's not a dummy and I'm not a ventriloquist
2) Ask before putting anything on his tray or hanging anything from his handles -- I'm fucking him and I still need to ask, so you damn well should ask
3) If you ask him what's wrong with him (or with his legs), it will be a challenge for me to not hate you forever
4) "Can I give you a hand?" is great. If the answer is no, smile and MOVE ON. If the answer is yes, LISTEN to what the person needs from you. Don't just start "helping" in the way you think is best

[jesse_the_k]

Your #2 is THE BEST EVER!

[davidgillon]

This!

[davidgillon]

Sounds good, more thoughts tomorrow, when hopefully I'll be less semi-conscious than currently.

[azurelunatic]

how to describe someone's wheelchair use, i.e. why "confined to a wheelchair" needs to diaf

[liv]

I think this would be brilliant and you'd do a great job of it. The thing I'm most confused about is the height differnce issue; I've seen very emphatic rants both ways, that the standing person should always bend or crouch down, and that they should never do so and it's abominably rude and ableist.

[davidgillon]

I prefer people to get down on my level. For anyone with neck issues, and that's an awful lot of wheelies, looking up more than briefly can be painful. OTOH, try to avoid leaning forward as that just makes you loom and invade personal space.

[cesy]

A lot of it's about how you do it, I guess? Like, if you are chatting to a friend who's sitting down, pulling up a chair to sit next to them so neither of you strain your neck can be natural and good. But crouching down can come across as very patronising, if you do it the same way you would for a small child and combine it with other signs like the way you talk. Similarly, standing to talk to someone sitting can be done in such a way that it's awkward and painful and horrible, or it can be casual and comfortable and not a big deal. And people who've experienced a lot of one or the other will have a strong reaction because of it. So I tend to go for whatever makes most sense in the situation - e.g. is there a chair nearby I can pull over, are we in a venue with a mix of people standing and sitting or all one or the other, is there enough space that I can stand back so no-one strains their neck, is it quiet enough that we can hear each other if I do that?

[(Anonymous)]

I wish I knew, I've offended people when in a group of several people standing and me sitting that when I join in they feel like I'm butting in or being rude, when I've found that I've failed to join in the way I would a few years ago and guess this is the others having lost clues, no one sees my lips move and directs attention at me etc. So the only cue I'm left with is sound.

I get pushed a lot, so it can be awkward if someone stops to talk to the pusher, also if they stop for what is intended to be brief, turns out not to be, so I'm turning around to join in. None of that would happen as a couple walking together.

[davidgillon]

Thoughts now I'm awake.

Personal space and wheelchairs. People seem to get a lot closer to me in the chair than with crutches, it's as if my personal space is now defined by the strict size of the chair, rather than having the normal gap around me.

As other people have mentioned, grabbing handles and pushing. I almost never have my handles visible, yet I've still had a drunk do it to me, and pushing 180 Degrees off the direction I want to go. I can't help feeling there would be a market for rigging up electric-shocks on them.

The whole wheelchair use= learning disabled assumption, which is just shockingly disablist and lazy. If anything, the wheelchair users I know tend to be smarter than average.

Treating the chair as furniture, leaning on it, etc. Variant on the personal space thing.

Supermarket checkout staff. I can load the stuff myself, even a slab of beer, and I can do it so the loads in the bags match what I can easily lift, but they will insist on helping, and they will load the bags to capacity.

Pedestrians who assume I can move sideways more easily than they can, and that I can stop on the spot if they step out in front of me without it hurting. Also people with backpacks and handbags who don't give a moment's thought to where they'll swing if they turn around suddenly.

People who are convinced the only way to hold a door open is to stand in the doorway - which makes it too narrow to get through.

There's an awful lot of overlap with behaviour towards people with crutches and canes, it seems to me.

ETA: people don't seem to appreciate the cost of a wheelchair, or understand that they're personally fitted and take months to produce, which means they get treated as though cheap and easily replaceable.

And the 'we can lift you down' scenario when the ramp doesn't turn up. Thanks, but I'd prefer you to go find the guy with the ramp (especially when it's 11pm and you have all clearly been drinking). If it comes down to it I can get out and get it down more safely myself.

Which brings us to: Yes, I can walk! So can most of us, to greater or lesser degree. Get over it.

[untonuggan]

Maybe something about different types of wheelchairs? Just because I did not know any of that before I started being more active around disability rights, and now universal access is kind of my catnip, but also accessibility devices. (Like for example, transport chairs vs. wheelchairs vs. power chairs)

Also, at least in the US, stores sometimes provide either power chairs or wheelchairs for use in the store, and maybe guidelines for etiquette around these (i.e. just because someone can walk after using it doesn't mean they are [ableist bullshit]; please if you are an employee make sure the power chairs get plugged in and recharged; idk if this is beyond the scope of your handout but why does one have to spend a gajillion spoons finding the person to unlock the magic shop wheelchairs?)

Dispelling the myth that wheelchair users = cannot walk so it can DIAF
(as others have said, above)

Not creating access issues with store displays or storage or "extra tables."

"Things you can talk about to a wheelchair user that are not invasions of privacy." (hobbies, reading, music, etc)

[silveradept]

Interested, definitely. Questions of "when it's appropriate to offer help, especially in work context..." would be nice.

[davidgillon]

Just been catching up on social media and found one of my wheelie friends was abused this week for asking someone to stop "helping" on a bus. They were not helping to the point they'd actually hurt my friend, but asking them to stop triggered an outpouring of abuse.

[cesy]

I'd be interested in seeing your views on this, as well as commentary on the existing similar guides out there.

[ewt]

I am interested, because I think of myself as mostly getting this stuff right most of tge time -- which means I probably get some big things wrong, and a general how-to guide will ptobably be useful in my quest for Being Less Crap. But usefulness to me (as someone who does not use a wheelchair) is not the point, here, at all.

Cycling has made me very much more aware of things like uneven paving surfaces, which might be worth a mention. My willingness to deal with cobbles is highly variable depending on which bits of me hurt most that day.

My general rule for other people's assistive devices etc is that I do not touch unless asked or it's a life-or-death scenario. I would probably help carry a wheelchair with someone in it down a flight of stairs if the building were on fire and I knew the step-free route was blocked, for example. But even then it would depend on how well I knew the building and ideally I'd prefer to have consent. In anything less than immediate emergency situations I'd no more touch or move a wheelchair that isn't mine without permission than snatch someone's glasses from their face.

[redsixwing]

Interested. I'm particularly interested in how-to about maneuvering around a wheelchair user - as in, how do I signal that I'll move out of your way without being a jerk, how quick a turn should I actually expect (so that I don't get in your way), etc.

[davidgillon]

For me, I work on the assumption the person on foot can move aside more easily, so I don't need them to signal (arguably this is slightly aggressive on my part, but it really is simpler for the walkie to move).

If I'm moving walking pace or above, turns aren't going to be sharp, I need to slow right down to turn on the spot.

[redsixwing]

That's really useful, thanks.

It helps to see that my assumptions are roughly in line with yours.

[pipisafoat]

always interested and finding the comments here very interesting.

when driving - look at the sidewalk before you pull across it when coming out of a parking lot! pedestrians have the right of way, and if I hear one more awful person try to say that because a person is using a wheelchair and thus is "on wheels" they aren't a pedestrian ... just ugh. so much ugh. anyone using a sidewalk legally has the right of way over a car coming out of a parking lot. anyone. regardless of wheel-status. I hate humanity as a whole on this issue.

actually the thing that is interesting to me is my work situation making the general rules I believe in actually not apply. so many of my patients are using wheelchairs as their primary mode of mobility, but 95% of them will not use that wheelchair in a month or so and don't have the feelings attached to the chair that the "typical" long-term chair user does. (in fact, because of society, they have the opposite feelings! they seem to expect that anyone passing by is obligated to push them wherever they want to go. they expect that everyone should ask them what's wrong and give them much pity - not even sympathy, pity. they seem to lose all sense to personal autonomy when seated in a wheelchair though they still have it seated in a straight chair or armchair or literally anything else.)
so there's wheelchair user culture, and then there's the culture of someone from general society who happens to be in a wheelchair for a bit. or happens to have aged into a wheelchair. 99% of this sort of population doesn't seem to actually become wheelchair users by my reckoning, meaning they don't have the feels and opinions and personal autonomy "typical" chair users do. I try to teach people who are using a chair for more than a few weeks how to operate it without help and that they do have personal autonomy and shouldn't put up with shit. and then I also treat them the way I would want to be treated. a lot of healthcare people, especially in long-term care facilities and assisted living facilities and short-stay rehab facilities who deal with mostly the "atypical" chair users on a very regular and frequent basis, don't seem to realize that there are chair users who are independent and don't appreciate the grabbing and "helping" stuff. so I want them to realize that. and I want them to teach their patients not only that they are allowed - encouraged! - to stand up for themselves from a chair but also that those who don't use chairs (anymore) should STOP IT WITH THE BAD WHEELCHAIR BEHAVIOR.

i mean, ideally the only grab-and-"help" would be, as someone already said, in an immediate life or death situation. for any person using or not using any sort of mobility aid. and the whole world would just understand that. and this wouldn't have to be such a THING.

how about also:
people with disabilities are not creating issues. YOU are creating issues by INVADING OUR BODIES AND MINDS and then somehow finding a way to turn it back around to us. society, stop it.
(because i am utterly exhausted with the way any time anyone stands up for their own basic rights it's somehow them creating an issue.)

[davidgillon]

+1!

Where there's a wheel, there's a way

[hairyears]

Well worth doing.