Abstract
Wheelchair castors fail frequently causing physical, social and economic consequences for wheelchair users. These failures occur in spite of established wheelchair test methods and regulations, suggesting that the existing tests may not be sufficient to screen poorly designed castors. An expert stakeholder group, convened by the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals (ISWP), noted castor failures as a high priority and recommended that a new castor testing system should be developed. In a previous study, the effect of shock exposure on castor durability was studied. The current paper extends the previous work and focuses on the development of a castor testing protocol based on shock, corrosion and abrasion exposure data collected in the community. The testing protocol was applied to 8 different castor models tested under four conditions: shock, corrosion + shock, abrasion + shock and abrasion + corrosion + shock. For each model, a total of n = 8 samples were evaluated across the four conditions. Results demonstrate that corrosion and abrasion reduced castor durability between 13% to 100% depending on the model. Importantly, the inclusion of corrosion and abrasion resulted in changes in the failure modes for 75% of the tested models and two-thirds of the altered failure modes are associated with increased risk of injury for wheelchair users. These results suggest that corrosion and abrasion present in the community reduce castor durability, thus supporting their inclusion in the castor testing protocol and potentially other wheelchair standards.
Highlights
Wheelchairs are known to fail frequently in a short period of time resulting in negative consequences for users [1,2,3,4,5]
Initial testing and data recording with the Motivation castor showed that higher size obstacles of 25.40mm-31.75mm thickness reproduce community accelerations
Wheelchair castors experience frequent failures in the adverse environments experienced in less-resourced settings (LRS) and rural areas of resourced settings (RS)
Summary
Wheelchairs are known to fail frequently in a short period of time resulting in negative consequences for users [1,2,3,4,5]. Community-based data collection and maintenance studies conducted in United States, Scotland, Kenya, India and Mexico have reported breakdowns and part failures with castors, brakes, seats and tyres from a few weeks to two years of wheelchair use [1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Failures are associated with significant adverse consequences, such as users being injured or stranded. Castor stem bolt fractures can cause the wheelchair to tip and the user to fall out of the wheelchair, which is the most common wheelchair injury.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call