The new developments in wheelchairs affecting people with spinal cord injuries never cease to amaze me . After over 17 years of trying to develop better wheelchairs and making the assessment and procurement process more consumer responsive, we seem to continue to be faced with a constant flow of new issues. I do not mean to imply that there has been no progress. Tremendous advances have been ma...

BACKGROUND The United Nations has called for countries to improve access to mobility devices when needed. The World Health Organization has published guidelines on the provision of manual wheelchairs in less-resourced settings. Yet little is known about the extent to which appropriate wheelchairs are available and provided according to international guidelines. This study's purpose was to descr...

Purpose of the Work. This study compared the propulsion biomechanics of manual wheelchair users with and without upper-limb impairment. Subjects and Procedures. Fortyseven manual wheelchair users (15 with upper-limb impairment and 32 without upper-limb impairment) propelled an instrumented wheelchair ergometer while a 3D motion analysis system was used to collect joint kinematic and temporal da...

The iMachine is a spring-loaded turntable used to measure inertial properties of irregularly shaped rigid bodies, specifically manual wheelchairs. We used a Newton-Euler approach to calculate wheelchair mass and center of mass (CM) location from static force measurements using load cells. We determined the moment of inertia about the vertical axis from the natural frequency of the system in sim...

Rory A. Cooper, PhD There is a growing and rich body of wheelchair research and development being generated around the world. A simple search of PubMed using the search term “wheelchair” shows that 259 articles were published in the past year, 566 in the past 2 years, 1,315 in the past 5 years, and 2,241 over the past 10 years. If one narrows the search to “power wheelchair,” the number of publ...

Wheelchairs are primarily designed for mobility and are not necessarily intended for use as motor vehicle seats. However, many wheelchairs serve as vehicle seats for individuals unable to transfer to a vehicle seat. Subjecting wheelchairs to sled testing, in part establishes the crashworthiness of wheelchairs used as motor vehicle seats. Computer simulations provide a supplemental approach for ...

OBJECTIVE Shocks and vibrations experienced while using a hand-rim wheelchair can contribute to discomfort, fatigue and injury. The aim of this study was to compare the seat forces and head accelerations experienced by manual wheelchair users during independent curb descent landings in a standard and 3 suspension-type rigid-frame wheelchairs. DESIGN EXPERIMENTAL repeated measures analysis ...

Most physically challenged people to rely on others for their motion and the number of such is increasing day by day. Manual Wheelchairs are quite difficult operate as they require force motion. To overcome this drawback, conventional wheelchairs or powered available in markets. Even if meant design comfort users expensive, so not every can afford them. reduce percentage use a manual wheelchair...