Geared Wheels vs. Standard Wheels: A comparison of Upper Extremity Joint Angles during Manual Wheelchair Propulsion
Mentor 1
Brooke Slavens
Mentor 2
Alyssa Schnorenberg
Mentor 3
Omid Jahanian
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
24-4-2015 10:30 AM
End Date
24-4-2015 11:45 AM
Description
This study looks to compare the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joint angles in the sagittal, coronal, and transverse planes between geared manual wheelchair (GMW) and standard manual wheelchair (SMW) propulsion on tile flooring. Manual wheelchairs are designed for people with locomotive disabilities who have sufficient upper body strength to propel themselves. The GMW is similar to SMW but the simple gears in the wheels allow users to propel in a lower gear. The geared wheel, comparable to a bike gear, has a gearing ratio of 2:1 and requires less applied force by the user, making propulsion less difficult than a SMW. While previous research has shown geared wheels to be beneficial during ramp assent [2], this study looks inclusively at all manual wheelchair users to provide prescriptive guidelines for GMWs.The procedure for data collection involved an able bodied, female subject propelling both the Easy Push (IntelliWheels) GMW and then the Breezy (Sunrise Medical) SMW across a 10-meter walkway. Twenty-seven reflective markers were placed on the subject’s upper extremity and were tracked using a 14-camera Vicon motion capture system. Using a custom UE inverse kinematics model developed in Matlab [3], the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joint angles of the dominate side were derived and analyzed during the wheelchair stroke cycle. The third stroke of three different trials was analyzed to avoid effects of acceleration.The geared manual wheelchair showed a statistically significant (p
Geared Wheels vs. Standard Wheels: A comparison of Upper Extremity Joint Angles during Manual Wheelchair Propulsion
Union Wisconsin Room
This study looks to compare the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joint angles in the sagittal, coronal, and transverse planes between geared manual wheelchair (GMW) and standard manual wheelchair (SMW) propulsion on tile flooring. Manual wheelchairs are designed for people with locomotive disabilities who have sufficient upper body strength to propel themselves. The GMW is similar to SMW but the simple gears in the wheels allow users to propel in a lower gear. The geared wheel, comparable to a bike gear, has a gearing ratio of 2:1 and requires less applied force by the user, making propulsion less difficult than a SMW. While previous research has shown geared wheels to be beneficial during ramp assent [2], this study looks inclusively at all manual wheelchair users to provide prescriptive guidelines for GMWs.The procedure for data collection involved an able bodied, female subject propelling both the Easy Push (IntelliWheels) GMW and then the Breezy (Sunrise Medical) SMW across a 10-meter walkway. Twenty-seven reflective markers were placed on the subject’s upper extremity and were tracked using a 14-camera Vicon motion capture system. Using a custom UE inverse kinematics model developed in Matlab [3], the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joint angles of the dominate side were derived and analyzed during the wheelchair stroke cycle. The third stroke of three different trials was analyzed to avoid effects of acceleration.The geared manual wheelchair showed a statistically significant (p
