The Power of Choice: Xabian’s Story

Now an 11-year-old boy living with his mum, Caddie, in suburban Melbourne, Xabian was born with an undiagnosed condition that severely limits his mobility and causes his arms to flail unexpectedly – movements often completely outside of his control. Unable to use a typical manual joystick, Xabian previously relied on his mum and other attendants to push him around in a manual chair with a backrest that wrapped around his shoulders and arms fitted with extensive bracing to limit his involuntary movements when needed.

Xabian and Caddie with his customised Magic 360 Urban and its recently fitted Mo-Vis foot control.

While keeping him safe, this manual chair also kept Xabian’s upper body movement tightly constrained and eventually created an isolating physical barrier from the world around him. As an otherwise normal and bright young person, Xabian was keenly affected by his inability to independently participate in everyday life at school and outside his home with family and friends.

The challenge for Magic Mobility’s Rehab Engineer, Scott, was to tailor a powered mobility solution that would open-up a much wider array of ‘normal’ adolescent opportunities and life choices for Xabian.

The customised seating solution was built on our highly compact Magic 360 Urban.

This powerful and stable, yet narrow and highly manoeuvrable mid-wheel drive base provides Xabian with largely unrestricted indoor and outdoor mobility in his everyday living environments.

Long-practiced in using his feet to eat, use the TV remote or manipulate things in lieu of his hands, the second part of Xabian’s unique Magic Mobility solution was a footplate specially-designed and built to accommodate a customised, foot-pedal controlled joystick.

The final part of the solution was the addition of customised armrest padding that both prevents Xabian’s flailing arms from getting snared and minimises the potential for pain or injury when his arms are free from his optional constraints. The chair is also fitted with upper body strapping that allows Xabian to choose to limit his arm movements when he wants to.

His customised foot plate and Mo-Vis foot control enables Xabian to steer using his feet and to go where he wants, unassisted.

The result? A purpose-built powerchair that lets Xabian go wherever he needs to keep up with his friends at school or attend other activities and events outside home. While he often prefers to keep his arms strapped, he can now also choose to keep them free, particularly when their involuntary movement is reduced by his regular Botox injections.

Since the chair was delivered in February of 2024, Xabian has already worn out one set of Urban tyres keeping up with his ever-active friends at school, and delights in heading out to explore the world on his own or hang out with friends – something any other typical 11-year-old might take for granted.

Originally fitted with a footplate mounted joystick, his chair has recently been upgraded with a foot control newly designed by Belgian firm Mo-Vis, further improving Xabian’s ability to steer and activate the chair’s powered functions.

His mum, Caddie, kindly explained what a massive impact his customised Magic 360 has made on the quality of both Xabian’s and her own lives.

“He’s 11 years old now and he was having trouble making friends at school and so him being able to drive his own wheelchair has given him so much more confidence to be able to make friends and keep up with them at school too.”

“He goes to a government-run school where the kids are all running around, and he can be part of that now, so that’s fantastic! He also took on power wheelchair soccer as well, so having the foot pedal has allowed him to play sports, too”.

“Because he’s 11 years old and goes to a normal school he doesn’t want to use the pathways. He wants to use the muddy path that goes up a hill sideways or wherever. He wants to go with the other kids without restriction. And that base is amazing! It acts like an octopus across the ground. …It just blew me away and it blew Xabian away that he could go up gutters like a four-wheel drive.”

Caddie explained that it’s not just his chair’s go anywhere mobility that has made a big difference. It’s also the freedom from upper body enclosure which has opened-up Xabian’s personal space, so he can engage more fully with the world around him.

“I love the fact that Scott has totally opened his chair up, which I think has helped to open his personality up as well.”

The deep, soft, customised padding on Xabians’s seat back and armrests protect his flailing arms when he chooses not to have them constrained by straps.

“Because he was so closed in before, and then – taking away those big wings that kind of held him into the chair, but putting in all the soft padding – I think it’s helped his own personality to come out as well, on top of allowing him to grow his independence.”

Like any mum of an adventurously active pre-teen child, Caddie has had to deal with seeing Xabian disappear into the world on his own, trusting him to learn to enjoy his independence by taking responsibility for his own wellbeing.

“Independence was the best thing that we could possibly give him because, you know, he’s so restricted in every other way, and he loves it. He loves to run off and just do his own thing, away from me. And the thing is, you’ve just got to let them. Half of me is like “Oh my gosh where is he going?” and the other half of me is like “Yes! He’s just a free kid, you know. He can go where he wants to go!”

Speaking about the impact that Xabian’s Magic 360 has made to her own life, Caddie told us:

“It’s totally changed my life for the better in the fact that he has independence now and he can sort of take himself places and he’s got the confidence too as well and I can do what I need to do. … It’s a part of normality that everybody takes for granted and yet when you don’t have it, you feel it because you just don’t have enough arms to do life as a mum.”

But normalcy brings more than just freedom from time consuming burdens.

“I think, probably my favourite part of that is that I can hold his hand when we’re walking to school.”

“You know, it’s something that as a mum and child, I think people totally forget how important that is. … He often leaves one of his hands out, right. We hold hands walking into school or walking from school to home and, for me, it’s huge.”

It always brings great joy to the Magic Mobility team to know that we’re able to bring so much enjoyment into the lives of someone who may be affected by severely limited mobility. And we hope that hearing about Xabian and Caddie’s story has brought some joy into your life, too.

Watch Xabian take his first ever independent ride in his brand new, custom fitted Magic 360 Urban powerchair.

If you would like to speak to our team of wheelchair specialists about a solution that is suited to your specific needs, you can contact us or give us a call at (03) 8791 5600 (if you are in Australia/NZ). If you are based outside of Australia/NZ, please view our global agent network here.