Wheelchair Bout Mobility in and out of the Home

Research Objectives: To describe differences in characteristics in wheelchair mobility between wheeling inside and outside the home. A secondary objective was to identify if there were any interaction effects of ethnicity or the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic on bout characteristics.

Design: A 7-day wheelchair activity study tracked wheelchair users' activities with accelerometers and Wi-Fi loggers placed on their wheelchairs.

Setting: Mobility activity was monitored inside each participant’s home and within their community.

Participants: Participants included a purposive convenience sample of 24 men with chronic paraplegia (8 non-Hispanic Black - NHB; 8 Hispanic - HIS; 8 non-Hispanic White – NHW).

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: The main outcome measures include the average speed, distance, and duration of each bout performed inside and outside of the participants' homes.

Results: The average distance (33.7 +/- 98.9 m), duration (50.8 +/- 87.2 sec), and velocity (0.5 +/- 0.2 m/s) of bouts performed outside the home were higher than bouts performed inside the home (10.5 +/- 21.5 m, 27.7 +/- 33.6 sec, and 0.4 +/- 0.1 m/s, respectively) (p < 0.05, 95% CI). Bout characteristics outside the home were significantly lower for NHB versus non-NHB and HIS versus non-HIS participants (p < 0.05). There was a significant decrease in bout characteristics after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but when participants were outside their home after the onset of COVID-19, bout distances and durations were longer than prior to the pandemic (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: The average bout characteristics outside the home show individuals have the capacity to push at higher speeds for longer distances. However, the home environment likely limits their need and/or ability to move at the same rate. These results have implications for the design needs for wheelchairs used primarily inside the home versus out. Environmental characteristics and other confounding factors, such as ethnicity or public health concerns, can be considered to help increase mobility through community accessibility.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.