ABSTRACT. Kilkens OJ, Post MW, van der Woude LH, Dallmeijer AJ, van den Heuvel WJ. The wheelchair circuit: reliability of a test to assess mobility in persons with spinal cord injuries. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2002;83:1783-8. Objective:To assess the reliability of a 9-task wheelchair circuit.Design: Three test trials per subject were conducted by 2 raters. Inter-and intrarater reliability were examined.Setting: Eight rehabilitation centers in the Netherlands. Participants: Convenience sample of 27 patients (age, Ն18y) with spinal cord injury (SCI), all of whom were in the final stage of their inpatient rehabilitation.Intervention: A wheelchair circuit was developed to assess mobility in subjects with SCI. The circuit consisted of 9 tasks: figure-of-8 shape, doorstep crossing, mounting a platform, sprint, walking, driving up treadmill slopes of 3% and 6%, wheelchair driving and transfer.Main Outcome Measures: Task feasibility, task performance time, and peak heart rates.Results: The number of tasks that subjects could perform varied from 3 to 9. Feasibility intrarater reliability was .98, and the interrater reliability intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was .97. Performance time ICCs ranged from .70 to .99 (mean, .88) for intrarater reliability and from .76 to .98 (mean, .92) for interrater reliability. Heart rate ICCs ranged from .64 to .96 (mean, .81) for intrarater reliability and from .82 to .99 (mean, .89) for interrater reliability.Conclusions: The reliability of the wheelchair circuit was good. More research is needed to assess test validity and responsiveness.

The Wheelchair Circuit is a valid and responsive instrument with which to measure manual wheelchair mobility in subjects with SCI.

This cross-sectional study describes the level of manual wheelchair skill performance and participation of persons with spinal cord injuries (SCIs) 1 year after discharge from inpatient rehabilitation and tests the hypothesis that wheelchair skill performance is positively related to participation. Participants included 81 persons with SCI from eight rehabilitation centers in the Netherlands, The Wheelchair Circuit consists of eight wheelchair skills and results in three test scores: ability, performance time, and physical strain. Participation was assessed with the sum of the subscales Mobility Range and Social Behavior of the 68-Item Sickness Impact Profile (SIP-SOC). SIPSOC was moderately related to the ability score (the Spearman rank correlation [r^] = -0.49), the performance time score (r_5= 0,54), and the physical strain score (r^ = 0.38). The regression analyses showed that, after controlling for lesion and personal characteristics, manual wheelehair skill performance is positively related to participation, with the strongest association for the performance time score. In persons with SCI who are manual wheelchair users, wheelchair skill performance is moderately associated to participation. Training of wheelchair skills has to be an important goal of rehabilitation, and persons should be stimulated to maintain their wheelchair skills after discharge from rehabilitation.

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