25 Jahre Orthotec - Schweizer Paraplegiker-Stiftung

25 years of Orthotec – «We are better together»

Anniversary celebrations for Orthotec: the subsidiary of the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation has been developing customised aids for people with a spinal cord injury for 25 years. The company thus helps people living with a spinal cord injury master the challenges of their lives themselves. Find out more about Orthotec.

Text: Martin Steiner, Cathérine Gasser
Photos: Swiss Paraplegic Foundation

On Friday 20 September 2019, Orthotec AG celebrated its 25th anniversary together with its customers. One of the highlights was the première of the new film “We are better together”. This is an emotional collage on the topic of freedom of movement. It focusses on five people with a spinal cord injury or a similar impairment who are living out their dreams and designing their everyday life with as much freedom and mobility as possible. This freedom of movement is possible because everyone works together: with trust, expertise, and a great deal of passion for people and technology.

Impressions of the anniversary celebrations

About 70 employees are committed with heart and soul and a love of innovation to looking after people with a spinal cord injury or a similar impairment – and time and again achieve what appears to be impossible. The company's core tasks include the provision of aids – wheelchairs, orthopaedic aids, incontinence products – and the customised conversion of all car brands. As a supplier of Swiss Paralympic, Orthotec is also committed to wheelchair sports in Switzerland.

Everything from a single source

Rehabilitation technology
Whether individually adapted manual or electric wheelchairs, ideal seating solutions, sports and leisure equipment, or unusual custom-made products, the mechanics in Nottwil are also able to solve complicated tasks. In addition to a service department, there are also other aids for everyday life.
Incontinence and care products
It is decisive for people living with a spinal cord injury and for care staff to find the ideal product for bladder dysfunction, wound care, and ventilation. Orthotec supports its customers with advice on and sales of a wide selection of high-quality products from various manufacturers.
Vehicle conversion
The conversion of vehicles of all brands is an essential factor for mobility. Without a customised vehicle, people with physical impairments can only get to work, to the shops, or to therapy with the help of others. Orthotec makes their everyday life easier and supports occupational and social integration.
Orthopaedic technology
Only being able to move to a limited degree has a massive impact on quality of life. With know-how and aids, staff at the Orthotec workshop and the orthopaedic technicians’ studio do all they can to enable people living with a spinal cord injury to gain or regain their quality of life.
Wheelchair sports
Technical knowledge and innovations promote top-ranking, recreational, and up-and-coming sport. Together with the athletes, Orthotec designs sports equipment for the most varied of disciplines and work meticulously on improvements. Technicians from Nottwil accompany the athletes to their major competitions.

«We are better together …»
The company from Nottwil is a non-profit organisation that anyone living with a spinal cord injury can contact if he or she has questions. For 25 years it has been committed to the values, culture, and performance mandate of the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation, while using the quest for new solutions to drive its own development. Over the coming years, digital technologies will open up numerous new areas of application. For Orthotec this is a challenge and a task: in accordance with the corporate motto, “We are better together”, the company wants to use technical development to the benefit of people living with a spinal cord injury.