2021 Annual Meeting

Quantifying the Driving Ability of Wheelchair Users

People who use electric powered wheelchairs require driving skills training to navigate safely and independent in the community. However, the current methods for evaluating the driving abilities of wheelchair users are subjective, binary (pass/ fail) and may depend on the therapist’s experience. Creating a benchmark scoring tool based on a number of quantitative metrics and level of wheelchair driving skills would aid in identifying methods to quantify a wheelchair user’s driving ability. This will enable health care providers to monitor the client’s mobility progress and personalize driving training to better suit their client’s growing and changing mobility needs. Ten wheelchair users were recruited to compare their driving skills in a common driving task. ‘Expert’ participants were 54.6 +/- 11.7 years of age with over 3 years of wheelchair driving experience. ‘Novice’ participants were 54.6 +/- 13.3 years of age with over 3 months of driving experience. Five ‘experts’ and five ‘novices’ were asked to drive backwards for three trials. A datalogger placed at the center of their wheelchairs recorded linear accelerations and angular velocities in three axes. The variability of each variable was measured using the sum squared error function (SSE). The results showed a significant lower lateral linear acceleration (p<0.05) in expert wheelchair users (34.40 +/- 14.42) compared to novice wheelchair users (85.49 +/- 71.18). Similar significant results (p<0.05) were obtained in the z-angular velocity (own axis) for experts (0.21 +/- 0.14 e+05) compared to novice wheelchair users (1.99 +/- 2.52 e+05). In order generate a benchmark scoring system, more participants are needed to implement an accurate baseline demonstrating experience with wheelchair ambulation. Numerous subsequent studies with other quantitative metrics and level of impairment must be carried out to take into consideration the progression of degenerative diseases and their influence on fine and gross motor control.