Changes in wheelchair biomechanics within the first 120 minutes of practice: spatiotemporal parameters, handrim forces, motor force, rolling resistance and fore-aft stability.

During manual wheelchair (MWC) skill acquisition, users adapt their propulsion technique through changes in biomechanical parameters. This evolution is assumed to be driven towards a more efficient behavior. However, when no specific training protocol is provided to users, little is known about how they spontaneously adapt during overground MWC locomotion.

Shoulder kinetics during start-up and propulsion with a manual wheelchair within the initial phase of uninstructed training.

Purpose: Wheelchair locomotion is constraining for the upper limbs and involves a set of motor tasks that need to be learnt by a novice user. To understand this integration process, we investigated the evolution of shoulder kinetics during start-up and propulsion within the initial phase of low-intensity uninstructed training.

Materials And Methods: Seventeen novice able-bodied subjects performed a 120-min uninstructed practice distributed over 4 weeks.