Walkers, Crutches, and Support Canes… Oh My! Orientation and Mobility for People with Orthopedic Impairments

Self-paced
4 credits

This course provides strategies and suggestions for teaching orientation and mobility techniques to people who use walkers, crutches, or support canes. The importance of collaboration with physical therapists and other professionals when working with such individuals is stressed along with the need for flexibility when addressing the individual needs of each person.

This course is available for 4 ACVREP and NBPCB credits.

Course Objectives:

Upon completing this course, learners will be able to identify:

A wide variety of options for supplying support and environmental preview.
The importance of consulting with other professionals including Physical Therapists and Occupational therapists.
Possible modifications to techniques that will maintain learner safety. 
Strategies for ensuring that mobility aids are properly sized.
Strategies for adding the long white cane to mobility aids recommended by physical therapists.

Course instructor: James Scott Crawford from Affiliated Blind of Louisiana

The following are recommended screen reader and browser combinations:

Mac: Voiceover with the latest version of Safari,
PC: JAWS or NVDA with Firefox

This course was developed by the National Research & Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision (NRTC) at Mississippi State University. We are the only national center funded to conduct research related to employment for people with blindness or low vision, and training and technical assistance for the federal Older Individuals who are Blind program. As a national center of excellence, we offer resources on a variety of topics for service providers, businesses, and persons with vision loss on our websites:

For daily content relevant to the field of blindness and low vision, connect with us on social media:

Full course description