Do you know how to adjust your trekking poles?

BLT's Burkhart Creek walk on October 13 was special this year, because we were joined by four people representing the Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital Physical Rehabilitation Department: Kelly, Veronica, Lynda, and Ron, shown from left to right in this photo.

 

Before the walk physical therapists Veronica and Kelly showed the group how to use various walking assistive devices: two types of walkers with wheels, a cane, and trekking poles. Sound dull? Not the way they presented it!

The critical part to using all of these devices is to adjust them properly. It was easy to see that the wrong adjustment will lead to an uncomfortable posture, as you can see from the two photos below.

Wrong walker height leads to bad posture
Ideal walker height

But the advantage of this seat walker is that you always have a place to sit. Here's a short video about the adjustments for this walker.

Wheeled walker with chair

Veronica and Kelly also showed us how to adjust canes and trekking poles and how to walk with them properly.

Finally, Kelly led us through a set of warmup stretch exercises before we started our walk. There were several comments that we ought to do this before all of our walks.

A large thank you to the folks from the Physical Rehabilitation Department at Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital. We hope we can partner up again in future!