科研之友
微信
新浪微博
Facebook
分享链接
摘要
Objective: To evaluate the impact of power assist wheels on the distance traveled by manual wheelchair users and analyze potential co-factors in the magnitude of response and to test the hypothesis that wheelers would travel significantly further with power assist wheels. Design: A 16-wk A (Preintervention)-B (Intervention)-A (Postintervention) repeated measures design. Seven women and 13 men (age, 43 +/- 15 yrs) full-time wheelers participated. During the pre- and postintervention phases (4 wks each), participants used their own unaltered manual wheelchairs. During the 8-wk intervention phase, the manual wheels were replaced with power assist wheels. Daily distance was measured with bicycle-style odometers. A composite score of laboratory wheelchair tasks was used to classify wheelchair performance. Mixed model repeated measures analysis of variance analyzed changes across phases of the trial. A post hoc analysis tabulated the amount of days wheelers exceeded their individual daily averages in each phase by two SDs. Results: Wheelers traveled significantly greater distances during the intervention phase compared with pre- or postintervention phases regardless of baseline wheelchair performance. Wheelers who demonstrated higher baseline wheelchair performance traveled lesser average distances in the first 2 wks after receiving power assist wheels than in the subsequent 6 wks. Wheelers exceeded their individual daily averages per phase on a significantly greater number of days during the intervention phase. Conclusions: Power assist wheels enabled wheelers to travel farther and to travel beyond their usual distances on more days. Further studies may be strengthened by taking into account the 2-wk "adjustment phase" for power assist wheels.
- 出版日期2010-8
