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Effect of Wheelchair Frame Material on Users' Mechanical Work and Transmitted Vibration
Wheelchair propulsion exposes the user to a high risk of shoulder injury and to whole-body vibration that exceeds recommendations of ISO 2631-1:1997. Reducing the mechanical work required to travel a given distance (WN-WPM, weight-normalized work-per-meter) can help reduce the risk of shoulder injur...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4167955/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25276802 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/609369 |
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author | Chénier, Félix Aissaoui, Rachid |
author_facet | Chénier, Félix Aissaoui, Rachid |
author_sort | Chénier, Félix |
collection | PubMed |
description | Wheelchair propulsion exposes the user to a high risk of shoulder injury and to whole-body vibration that exceeds recommendations of ISO 2631-1:1997. Reducing the mechanical work required to travel a given distance (WN-WPM, weight-normalized work-per-meter) can help reduce the risk of shoulder injury, while reducing the vibration transmissibility (VT) of the wheelchair frame can reduce whole-body vibration. New materials such as titanium and carbon are used in today's wheelchairs and are advertised to improve both parameters, but current knowledge on this matter is limited. In this study, WN-WPM and VT were measured simultaneously and compared between six folding wheelchairs (1 titanium, 1 carbon, and 4 aluminium). Ten able-bodied users propelled the six wheelchairs on three ground surfaces. Although no significant difference of WN-WPM was found between wheelchairs (P < 0.1), significant differences of VT were found (P < 0.05). The carbon wheelchair had the lowest VT. Contrarily to current belief, the titanium wheelchair VT was similar to aluminium wheelchairs. A negative correlation between VT and WN-WPM was found, which means that reducing VT may be at the expense of increasing WN-WPM. Based on our results, use of carbon in wheelchair construction seems promising to reduce VT without increasing WN-WPM. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4167955 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Hindawi Publishing Corporation |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-41679552014-09-28 Effect of Wheelchair Frame Material on Users' Mechanical Work and Transmitted Vibration Chénier, Félix Aissaoui, Rachid Biomed Res Int Research Article Wheelchair propulsion exposes the user to a high risk of shoulder injury and to whole-body vibration that exceeds recommendations of ISO 2631-1:1997. Reducing the mechanical work required to travel a given distance (WN-WPM, weight-normalized work-per-meter) can help reduce the risk of shoulder injury, while reducing the vibration transmissibility (VT) of the wheelchair frame can reduce whole-body vibration. New materials such as titanium and carbon are used in today's wheelchairs and are advertised to improve both parameters, but current knowledge on this matter is limited. In this study, WN-WPM and VT were measured simultaneously and compared between six folding wheelchairs (1 titanium, 1 carbon, and 4 aluminium). Ten able-bodied users propelled the six wheelchairs on three ground surfaces. Although no significant difference of WN-WPM was found between wheelchairs (P < 0.1), significant differences of VT were found (P < 0.05). The carbon wheelchair had the lowest VT. Contrarily to current belief, the titanium wheelchair VT was similar to aluminium wheelchairs. A negative correlation between VT and WN-WPM was found, which means that reducing VT may be at the expense of increasing WN-WPM. Based on our results, use of carbon in wheelchair construction seems promising to reduce VT without increasing WN-WPM. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014 2014-09-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4167955/ /pubmed/25276802 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/609369 Text en Copyright © 2014 F. Chénier and R. Aissaoui. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Chénier, Félix Aissaoui, Rachid Effect of Wheelchair Frame Material on Users' Mechanical Work and Transmitted Vibration |
title | Effect of Wheelchair Frame Material on Users' Mechanical Work and Transmitted Vibration |
title_full | Effect of Wheelchair Frame Material on Users' Mechanical Work and Transmitted Vibration |
title_fullStr | Effect of Wheelchair Frame Material on Users' Mechanical Work and Transmitted Vibration |
title_full_unstemmed | Effect of Wheelchair Frame Material on Users' Mechanical Work and Transmitted Vibration |
title_short | Effect of Wheelchair Frame Material on Users' Mechanical Work and Transmitted Vibration |
title_sort | effect of wheelchair frame material on users' mechanical work and transmitted vibration |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4167955/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25276802 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/609369 |
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