Scooters Gain Ground in Mobility Race

Attention, everyone entrenched in the fierce debate over the finer points of scooter sales and production: Take note of the comeback scooters are making in the mobility segment of the home medical equipment industry. Notice, too, that the influx of imports is slowing, and that scooter manufacturers are moving past the heated rivalry with power wheelchair manufacturers to serve a new population of seniors.

Power Wheelchair or Scooter?

A decade ago, bulky scooters served a limited population of rehab users, specifically those with “less complex needs,” says Simon Margolis, vice president for clinical and professional services at National Seating and Mobility and president of the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America. “But we're finding out that [those patients] are more complex than we thought. They need to receive a piece of equipment that will be adaptable to their needs.”

According to Margolis, for some end users with progressive disabilities, this may ultimately require moving from a scooter to a wheelchair.

However, where once manufacturers may have been jaded by the rivalry between power wheelchairs and scooters, experts say today's market is different. “The [scooter] market was stagnant before because the focus was on the moneymaking machines: the power chairs,” says Juan Carlos Rivera, president of IMC Heartway.

But leading manufacturers contend that the focus has moved away from the equipment and toward the user — namely, senior citizens — earning scooters a place in the mainstream mobility market.

The populations served by scooters and power wheelchairs today are “two very different groups of individuals,” according to Cy Corgan, national sales manager for retail mobility at Pride Mobility Products. Scooters serve seniors who want to maintain active lifestyles as they grow older, so that despite frailty from aging or minor injury, scooters can provide what Corgan calls “the gift of independence.”

“It's not about rehab anymore like 10 or 20 years ago,” says Randy Riecks, national sales manager for Ranger All Season. “Seniors drive this market. They've been active all their lives, so mobility is important to them.”

Given this positive trend, confidence among scooter manufacturers is building. “It's a numbers game,” states Norman Stein, director of marketing for No Boundaries. “There are millions of people turning 70-plus each day. The senior market is going to take over the whole medical market in the next 10 to 15 years.”