Power-assisted wheels ease energy costs and perceptual responses to wheelchair propulsion in persons with shoulder pain and spinal cord injury.

Objective: Test effects of pushrim-activated power-assisted wheelchairs (PAPAWs) on the energetics and perceptual responses to steady-state and intensity-graded wheelchair propulsion in persons with paraplegia and tetraplegia having chronic shoulder pain.

Design: Test, retest with a control condition.

Setting: Academic medical center.