Clinical application of the upper limb motion analysis during wheelchair propulsion

Abstract

Manual wheelchair propulsion results in a physical demand on the upper extremities that, due to its repetitive nature, leads to chronic pain, specially at wrist and shoulder joints. These problems are increasing because life expectancy of patients with spinal cord injury has incremented during recent years. In fact, the consequence of the long-term use of the wheelchair presents a biomechanical challenge as the upper extremities are not designed to support propulsion repetitive movements. Analyzing the manual wheelchair propulsion gesture with a biomechanical approach provides objective data on the loads and movements that the upper limb supports. Therefore, transferring this biomechanical analysis towards the clinical field through an application will help the facultatives on taking decisions. In this paper, an application which provides flexibility, all the needed information and a report with the key data of a propulsion test has been developed.