Comparison of Shoulder Muscle Electromyographic Activity During Standard Manual Wheelchair and Push-Rim Activated Power Assisted Wheelchair Propulsion in Persons With Complete Tetraplegia

Keep on rolling: functional evaluation of power-assisted wheelchair use

“…[18,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] Fifteen studies were cross-over trials with a repeated measurements design, comparing power-assist to hand-rim or powered wheelchair use. [18,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][36][37][38][39][40] One study consisted of multiple qualitative interviews. [35] Two studies did not perform a statistical analysis.…”

“…However, all studies reported a significant decreased activity in the pectoralis major and in two studies activity in the tricpes brachii significantly decreased [27,37] during power-assisted propulsion. Lighthall-Haubert et al [38] found similar supraspinatus activity during hand-rim and power-assisted propulsion, probably because the available power-assisted wheelchair had a seat 18-inches (48 cm) wide, whereas for propulsion in the standard hand-rim wheelchair a seat width of 16 or 18 inches (41 or 48 cm) was selected based on the size of the subjects. This may have required increased glenohumeral abduction during power-assisted propulsion.…”

“…This may have required increased glenohumeral abduction during power-assisted propulsion. [38] Power-assisted propulsion tends to reduce the cardiovascular and respiratory strain compared to hand-rim propulsion. Heart rate was lower during power-assisted propulsion compared to hand-rim propulsion on an activities of daily living (ADL) course, [26] and at particular speed and resistance combinations in the dynamometer trials.…”

“…[28,32] The results on push frequency were not unambiguous. [28,31,32,38,39] Muscle activation patterns were compared between regular hand-rim and power-assisted propulsion [27,37,38] with different test protocol and measurement techniques (surface [27,37] and fine wire electromyography [38] ), therefore summarization of the results is difficult. However, all studies reported a significant decreased activity in the pectoralis major and in two studies activity in the tricpes brachii significantly decreased [27,37] during power-assisted propulsion.…”

“…[18,26,28,29,[31][32][33][34][35][37][38][39][40] Seven of them were carried out at the University of Pittsburgh and the Human Engineering Research Laboratory of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. [26,28,29,[31][32][33][34] The three studies performed outside the USA were performed in Canada [30,36] and The Netherlands.…”