Individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) report decreased satisfaction with their mobility devices compared with individuals with spinal cord injuries (SCIs). This study (1) investigated the demographic differences between veterans with MS (V-MS) and veterans with SCI (V-SCI) who were issued a wheelchair by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and (2) described differences in mobility devic...

Introduction: Wheelchairs are the prime mobility aid of persons with spinal cord injuries. Manual wheelchair propulsion puts a lot of demand on the cardiopulmonary as well as the skeletal system. The main purpose of the study was to compare the effects of both arm ergometry training and progressive resistance exercise training of upper limbs on resting heart rate and distance covered during whe...

W heelchairs provide mobility for millions of people with physical impairments. However, prolonged manual wheelchair use can lead to pain and repetitive strain injury (RSI) of the upper extremities. The number of manual wheelchair users experiencing pain tends to increase with the time spent using a wheelchair. Although manual wheelchairs have improved tremendously over the past 15 years, many ...

Cognitively-impaired older adults in long-term care (LTC) facilities are often excluded from powered wheelchair use because of safety concerns, even when manual wheelchair operation is difficult or impossible. Although several intelligent wheelchairs have been designed recently, and can potentially help restore mobility and independence for cognitively-impaired LTC residents, very few systems h...

Whole-body shocks and vibrations experienced during manual wheelchair use can decrease an individual's comfort, increase the rate of fatigue, result in injury, and consequently limit mobility and community participation. We used a wheelchair-vibration simulator to examine whether the seat reaction forces experienced by wheelchair users were differentially influenced by wheelchair suspension, tr...

The objective of this study was to test the hypotheses (i) that health-care workers vary greatly in the methods used to fold and unfold selected manual wheelchairs, and (ii) that many of the methods used include bent and twisted back postures that are known to be associated with a high risk of injury. We studied 20 health-care workers in a rehabilitation center. Subjects folded and unfolded two...

We tested a series of commercially available titanium ultralight wheelchairs using American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/ Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) testing procedures to compare their durability with previously tested aluminum ultralight wheelchairs and lightweight wheelchairs. Three of each of the following titanium wheelchairs ...