Sleep in a Riser Recliner
In this session we will explore the issues around people sleeping in riser recliner chairs – we will look at this issue from a functional occupational performance and a tissue viability perspective.
This session is aimed to enable health care professionals to think around this presenting issue to enable them to have a constructive discussion with people they are working with to come to an agreeable solution.
Learning Outcomes
- Understand from a person’s perspective their reasons for wanting to sleep in a riser recliner armchair.
- Understand the functional postural implications of sleeping in a riser recliner.
- Understand the tissue viability implications of sleeping in a rise recliner.
- Be able to reason with service user’s options for managing a situation where they want to sleep in a riser recliner
Meet our Experts

Jenny is a senior occupational therapist. She qualified in 1997 and completed her MSc in Neuro-rehabilitation in 2007. She has worked in Neurological Rehabilitation at the Battle Hospital in Reading, and the Rivermead Rehabilitation Centre in Oxford which became part of the Oxford Centre for Enablement in 2000. She moved into the Specialist Disability Service at the OCE from where she joined the Oxford MND Centre in January 2007.
Since August 2009 Jenny has been funded full-time by the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association to develop NHS wheelchair services across the UK, to improve wheelchair provision for people living with MND.

Sarah has always had a keen interest in Tissue Viability since becoming a registered nurse in 2002. Her experience varies from within a community setting, where she completed her Tissue Viability based degree in 2007. She then worked within the private sector to gain additional advanced wound care skills whilst working with a medical devices company specialised in wound healing. In 2010, Sarah became a Tissue Viability Nurse and shaped a specialised service within the acute sector for 7 years before returning to the community setting as a TVN.
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