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The effect of technique and transfer board use on the performance of wheelchair transfers

Barbareschi, G; Cheng, TJ; Holloway, C; (2018) The effect of technique and transfer board use on the performance of wheelchair transfers. Healthcare Technology Letters , 5 (2) pp. 76-80. 10.1049/htl.2017.0075. Green open access

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Abstract

Transferring to and from the wheelchair seat is a necessary skill for many wheelchair users who wish to be independent in their everyday life. The performance of wheelchair transfers has been associated with the risk of falling and developing upper limb injuries. Both present a risk to the independence of the individual. Previous studies on wheelchair transfers have focused mainly on the analysis of sitting transfers performed by individuals with Spinal Cord Injury, which only represent a small portion of the wider wheelchair users’ population. The purpose of this letter is to investigate the effect of different transferring techniques (sitting, standing) and transfer board use on the ground reaction forces under the hands during transfer performance and transfer quality measured using the Transfer Assessment Instrument (TAI). Sitting transfers displayed generally higher peak and mean reaction forces underneath both leading and trailing hands compared to the other techniques, but the difference was only significant between sitting and standing transfers. Standing transfers had significantly lower TAI scores compared to sitting transfer, potentially indicating a decreased level of safety associated with their performance. Transfer boards were only partially effective in reducing the weight born by the upper limbs and they caused only a minor reduction in the overall TAI score in comparison to sitting transfers.

Type: Article
Title: The effect of technique and transfer board use on the performance of wheelchair transfers
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1049/htl.2017.0075
Publisher version: http://digital-library.theiet.org/content/journals...
Language: English
Additional information: This is an open access article published by the IET under the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Keywords: wheelchair transfers; transfer quality; spinal cord injury; transfer performance; ground reaction forces; mean reaction forces; sitting; TAI; falling; wheelchair seat; upper limb injuries; transfer board; standing; transfer assessment instrument
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10024580
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