Manual Wheelchair Skills Training for Community-Dwelling Veterans with Spinal Cord Injury: A Randomized Controlled Trial

OBJECTIVES To test the hypotheses that community-dwelling veterans with spinal cord injury (SCI) who receive the Wheelchair Skills Training Program (WSTP) in their own environments significantly improve their manual wheelchair-skills capacity, retain those improvements at one year and improve participation in comparison with an Educational Control (EC) group. METHODS We carried out a randomized controlled trial, studying 106 veterans with SCI from three Veterans Affairs rehabilitation centers. Each participant received either five one-on-one WSTP or EC sessions 30-45 minutes in duration. The main outcome measures were the total and subtotal percentage capacity scores from the Wheelchair Skills Test 4.1 (WST) and Craig Handicap Assessment and Reporting Technique (CHART) scores. RESULTS Participants in the WSTP group improved their total and Advanced-level WST scores by 7.1% and 30.1% relative to baseline (p < 0.001) and retained their scores at one year follow-up. The success rates for individual skills were consistent with the total and subtotal WST scores. The CHART Mobility sub-score improved by 3.2% over baseline (p = 0.021). CONCLUSIONS Individualized wheelchair skills training in the home environment substantially improves the advanced and total wheelchair skills capacity of experienced community-dwelling veterans with SCI but has only a small impact on participation.