Mobility Aids
Buy and sell mobility aids in Costa Rica.
A pair of crutches left in the wardrobe once the cast came off, a cane bought for a few weeks after a knee operation, a rollator that did a year of slow walks round the block: mobility aids outlast the need far more often than they wear out, which is why they are worth looking for pre-owned as well as new. Wheelchairs, transport chairs, powered chairs and mobility scooters sit alongside them. In Costa Rica the street decides as much as the user does, because cracked sidewalks, deep gutters and long hills punish small wheels and weak brakes long before a level mall floor would.
Canes, crutches and walking frames carry weight in different ways:
a cane is mostly there for balance, and a quad cane stands up on its own beside a chair. Crutches take far more. Underarm crutches are the usual pick for a few weeks after a sprain or a fracture, while long-term users tend to prefer forearm crutches, with a cuff round the arm, because they leave the armpit alone. A walking frame with no wheels is lifted at every step, slow but the steadiest of all. Put wheels on every leg, add hand brakes and a seat, and it becomes a rollator, for someone who walks well enough but needs to stop and sit on the way.
Wheelchairs, powered chairs and scooters differ in who does the pushing:
a self-propelled wheelchair has large rear wheels with hand rims so the user can move alone, while a transport chair runs on small wheels, needs someone behind it and folds lighter for a taxi. A powered chair is driven with a joystick and turns in a tight space, so it works indoors; a mobility scooter is steered with a tiller, turns wide and belongs on the street rather than in a narrow kitchen. Hospital beds and hoists are under home medical equipment, the next shelf over within medical and mobility.
Small wheels against Costa Rican sidewalks:
choose by the route the aid will really travel. A rollator on small wheels rolls nicely across tiles and stops dead at a cracked sidewalk or the lip of a gutter, so for walks outside the house the larger wheels are worth the extra weight. Solid wheelchair tyres never go flat but pass every bump straight to the seat; air-filled ones ride softer over broken concrete and gravel lanes. A scooter that cruises flat Cañas or Santa Cruz can flag on the climbs of Atenas or Escazú. Then check the fit: the weight limit on the label, the seat width against the user’s hips, and grips that adjust to wrist height.
Rollators cost little, powered chairs a great deal:
a rollator with a seat and hand brakes is around ₡50,000 to ₡70,000 new, so a used one has to be clean, complete and clearly cheaper to compete. Powered chairs and scooters sit in another bracket, often past a million colones new, and on a used one much of the price rides on the battery. A pack that still manages a full outing is worth paying for; one that dies halfway home means a replacement before the chair is any use, and that belongs off the asking price.
Tips, brake cables and casters on a used mobility aid:
these are the parts that wear, and they cost nothing to check. The rubber tip on a cane or crutch should still have tread, and the push-button height pins should click fully through with no wobble. On a rollator, push each brake lever down into the parking position: the wheel should lock, and a slack or frayed cable points to hard use. On a wheelchair, look for cracked tyres, front casters that shimmy when pushed briskly, and footplates and armrests that are all there. Drive anything powered on the street outside, ask when the battery was bought and how far it went on its last charge, and make sure the charger is the original.
Crutches after a recovery, scooters after years of use:
the buyer is usually choosing for someone else: give the weight limit, the seat width, the grip height range and the folded size, and say which tyres it runs on. Photograph the tips, brake levers and tyres close up, and on a powered chair the battery with its date and the charger. Crutches and canes from a short recovery are among the easiest things to pass on once the grips and pads are washed. Someone coming over from Palmares will ask whether the person who will use it can come along to try the height, and the answer worth giving is yes.