Freedom counts
Hanne, 46 years old and a quadriplegic, treasures freedom very much. Therefore, she is very happy about her LEVO chair that allows her to stand up and be active at the same time. And this gives her a number of new possibilities.

“Before I got my LEVO chair, I used a standing-support table. But it was too difficult for me to get into i, and I didn't really think it was a good idea to stand there and do nothing,” Hanne says over a cup of coffee with the dog, Sita, at her side.

Hanne was paralysed from the pelvis down after an accident in 1996. She lives by herself with her dog, Sita, and she has a daughter who is 26 years old and a son who is 24, and grandchildren have arrived. Hanne likes to take care of the little ones who know that other rules will apply at grandmother's house: “The children like to help out and they don't drop things on the floor. Or else grandma couldn't get around in her wheelchair,” Hanne says.

Before she lost her mobility from the pelvis down in the accident, Hanne was a cleaner at Odense University Hospital. Today she is a pensioner working as a volunteer at a café at Tarup Aftenskole [night school] twice a week where she makes coffee, tea and cleans up etc.. In fact, Hanne is very active; she engages in single rock, Grøn Koncert [Green Concert] and a night out with the girls. She participates in various arrangements and engages in sewing as well as English training activities.

Because she lives so actively and wants to be as independent of help from others as possible, there was no doubt in her mind that the LEVO chair was just the chair for her. “Before I got the LEVO chair, there were a lot of things I would like to do, but I couldn't do myself. For example, I couldn't clean shelves or reach the top cabinets. Then I heard about the LEVO chair, and I thought that such a chair was what I wanted as this would really enable me to manage a lot of things in my everyday life,” Hanne explains. She applied for it and got her LEVO in 2001 – and she never regretted it.

"I wouldn't be without
the freedom LEVO gives me"

Primarily, Hanne uses the LEVO chair when she wants to stand up, when guests are visiting her or when she is cleaning or painting. She painted the hall and the doorframes of the house by herself. “I wouldn't be without the freedom LEVO gives me. With LEVO I can manage most things all by myself without asking other people for help. If I haven't had the LEVO chair, for example, I wouldn't have been able to paint my hall alone,” Hanne says.

Hanne feels that physically it is good for her body to rise to an upright position and that her upper body will be strengthened when she is standing in the LEVO chair doing some other movements. “I can feel that it is good for my body to be physically active. And here LEVO is indispensable. I would not be able to be that active if it wasn't for LEVO that allows me to stand up and clean, water plants, paint and put things back into the cabinets,” Hanne claims with a smile.

Hanne drives car and she always takes a ramp with her to make it easier to climb the stairs that can be found most places. With the car, her manual wheelchair and her LEVO, Hanne is doing just fine on her own - and she treasures the independence and the freedom very much.