Members of the Community Living and Quality of Life (COM-QoL) team, an inter-provincial research team of Quebec and Ontario researchers, have just published a new study on wheelchair skills. The study describes the manual wheelchair skill profiles of experienced users with spinal cord injury and their wheeled mobility (distance and speed) while considering their level of injury and age. Skill levels were evaluated using the wheelchair skills test (WST) and their mobility was measured in the participants’ own environment over a 7-day period, using a Cateye cycle computer.
The findings of this study illustrates that wheelchair skills training is associated with better mobility, which in turn can lead to improved community participation.