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Home / Features / SCI Questions and Answers / If you have the choice of standing in braces or sitting in a chair, which one do you use?

If you have the choice of standing in braces or sitting in a chair, which one do you use?

Written by Sean on Thursday, May 22, 1997

If you have the choice of standing in braces or sitting in a chair, which affords you the greater mobility in most circumstances? indoors vs. outdoors? social contact (considering the eye-level match of the braces vs. the stability and relative comfort of the chair)? personal ease and sense of well being? public acceptance as “near normal” vs. obvious disability?

In almost all circumstances I would now choose the chair. Given a relatively good level of physical access I can function as an equal in my chair. Whilst on my braces I may appear more normal standing still but the instant I try and move I am much more disabled than in the chair. As the years have passed since my injury I have become less and less concerned with looking normal and more concerned with functioning within society as normally as possible. I have also found the chair to be an asset it certain situations such as business conferences as it becomes a focus and you get to meet folk who might normally be hard to collar.