In a Nutshell:
Recommended For: This chair is designed primarily for short-term use. As such, it is recommended for children with temporary mobility issues.
Do you have a child who has suffered a recent injury, like a broken leg, and as a result, needs a temporary, short-term mobility aid? Are you looking for something durable enough to see you through the temporary condition and light enough to be able to travel with?
If you answered yes to the questions above, then the little Jymni, offered by Invacare, might be just what you’re looking for.
Invacare is a well-known, well-established force in the wheelchair market with a reputation for making quality products and standing behind them. So, you can buy with confidence if you decide you want one of these.
Note, however, that this chair is optimized for relatively short-duration use. As such, this chair won’t be a good fit for everyone. If you don’t have a long-term need, it’s an excellent option.
In the sections that follow here in our Invacare 9000 Jymni review, we’ll tell you everything this chair has to offer, and we’ll go into detail explaining why this isn’t a great choice for those with long-term needs.
If you’re curious to know more, read on, and let’s take a closer look.
An Overview of the Invacare 9000 Jymni Pediatric Wheelchair
It’s easy to see at a glance that the design team behind the Jymni took no chances where the aesthetic of the chair was concerned. It’s not ugly. It’s just functional and designed along purely conventional lines.
The one nod to aesthetics that the designers gave it was the inclusion of sporty mag wheels, which do serve to give the chair a vaguely racy appearance. On balance, though, this chair is much more about function than form.
If you’re looking for something more visually appealing, then the basic black chair with chrome highlights will leave you underwhelmed, mag wheels, or no.
Before we talk about anything other than simple aesthetics in this section of our Invacare 9000 Jymni review, let’s take a moment to check out the core stats that define this model so we can get a better sense of what we’re dealing with. Here’s a quick overview:
- Overall Chair Width: 18” – 24” (2” increments, if you order the chair with space-saving arms); 19” – 25” (2” increments, if you order the chair with conventional arms)
- Overall Chair Depth: 27.5” – 31.5.”
- Seat Width Options: 10” to 16” (in 2” increments)
- Seat Depth Options: 10,” 12,” or 14.”
- Folded Width: 12” – 13.”
- Chair Weight: 31 pounds
- Maximum Supported Weight: 125 pounds
There’s actually quite a lot to talk about where these numbers are concerned, some good, and some not so good. First, we love the fact that there are so many options available, but this is kind of a two-edged sword.
You’ll need to take careful measurements of your child to be sure you’re getting a chair that will provide a good fit. You’ll also need to think, right from the very start, about how long the chair will be used for and account for any growth that might occur during that time.
In general, then, this sees many people getting a wheelchair that’s slightly larger than their child needs at the time of purchase, giving them at least a bit of room to grow into it.
The downside here is that since all the values are static, once you make your selections, that’s what you get. Without also a growth kit for this chair, once your child outgrows it, that’s it.
We would love to have seen a more flexible design here that would allow the chair to expand and grow with the child, but that would have made this model markedly more expensive. Overall though, these numbers and the number of options available to you are exceptional and just what we’d expect from a company like Invacare.
Unfortunately, the glaring flaw in this design is the limited maximum supported weight. Even if your child doesn’t grow physically much bigger, the 125-pound weight limit of the model puts a hard cap on just how long the chair will remain useful.
Adjustability and Comfort
On the adjustability front, the Invacare 9000 Jymni wheelchair offers the Big Two. The height of the seat can be set to either 15,” 16,” or 17” depending on the needs of your child, and the leg rests can be adjusted for length. Taken together, these two things give you quite a bit of flexibility to optimize the chair for your child’s comfort.
Speaking of comfort, the chair is clad in durable, sturdy nylon that has been treated so as to be resistant to both mildew and bacteria. It is both breathable and easy to clean.
Unfortunately, neither the seat nor the seatback is padded in any way. The chair is comfortable enough as-is for shorter periods of sitting. If the plan is to have your child spend several hours at a stretch in this chair, then you’re almost certainly going to want to invest in a good seat pad, and probably an additional cushion for the seatback as well
The good news there is that you’ll find a wide range of aftermarket options, and can get exactly what you want, and the precise level of comfort your child desires.
At the point of sale, you can choose between space-saving or full-length arms. Whichever option you select, know that the armrests aren’t height-adjustable, but they do flip back to make transfers into and out of the chair easier, and they are padded, which enhances the comfort of the chair.
The leg rests swing away, and provide the traditional footrest. Note that this chair does not come with calf pads or even a calf strap, so the leg support is limited.
That detracts marginally from the Invacare pediatric wheelchair’s overall comfort, especially during long periods of sitting in it but is not something that most people would see as a dealbreaker.
Extras and Options
Given the price Invacare is charging for this chair, we have to admit that we were a bit disappointed not to see any extras on offer. At the very least, we would have expected a safety belt and perhaps anti-tippers, two important safety features that are especially high-value in pediatric wheelchairs.
Sadly, there are no extras on offer with this design. On the other hand, the lack of built-in extras could be seen as an opportunity.
Since there are so many aftermarket enhancements available, you can treat this chair as something of a blank canvas and customize it to your heart’s content via products sold by third-party vendors.
Of course, doing this does have the inevitable consequence of increasing the total cost of ownership of the chair, so it is a bit of a tradeoff.
Portability & Ease of Use
Here, the little Invacare 9000 wheelchair really shines. This is not a large chair, and as such, it’s able to slide through standard-width doorways with ease. Since it’s not physically large or imposing, it’s also incredibly maneuverable, even in tight spaces and cramped quarters. If you live in a smaller home or apartment, your child will still be able to navigate that space with ease.
It’s not the lightest wheelchair on the market at 37 pounds, but it is light enough that folding it and taking it on the road with you isn’t much of a challenge. Given that it folds down to a width of just 12” or 13” (depending on the options you’ve selected), it’s relatively easy to find a place to put it.
If you have a full-sized sedan, it should fit easily enough into your available trunk space, and if you have a truck, van, SUV, or hatchback, you should have no difficulty at all.
However, note that the wheels that come standard on this chair are optimized for handling on flat, level surfaces including most indoor flooring, sidewalks, parking lots, shopping centers, and the like. If your plan is to take your child to the park or out on a nature trail, you’ll definitely want to upgrade the wheels to something optimized for those rougher types of terrain as the current wheels are simply not up to the task.
Pros & Cons of Invacare 9000
This is unquestionably a good chair, but because it doesn’t come with a growth kit, and given its relatively modest supported weight limit, it’s also a somewhat limited chair. The Jymni 9000 wheelchair isn’t the model you want if your child has a long-term mobility issue that will see him or her spending years in a wheelchair.
This is much more something to purchase for a shorter-term need.
That’s the real limiting factor here, and if there’s one reason you’d ultimately gravitate to some other model, that would be it.
Invacare 9000 Jymni Review Conclusion
We like the little Jymni, but we don’t quite love it. We absolutely understand why the company made this model and, more importantly, why they made it the way they did. Not everyone has a need for a long-term mobility solution, and this chair was designed specifically with those folks in mind.
If you have a short-term mobility issue, we recommend this model. Of course, we can’t recommend it at all if your needs are long-term. As mentioned in the previous section here in our Invacare 9000 Jymni review, that’s just not what this chair is for.
On that basis, we give this one a provisional recommendation.
References & Resources:
- Invacare, Official Brand Website
- Invacare 9000 Jymni User Manual
- Wheelchairs For Children Under 12 With Physical Impairments, NCBI
- Quick Tips on Choosing the Right Wheelchair For Your Child, sourcekids
- Use of Manual and Powered Wheelchair in Children With Cerebral Palsy: A Cross-Sectional Study, BMC Pediatrics
