Abstract
BackgroundIn long-term care environments, residents who have severe mobility deficits are typically transported by having another person push the individual in a manual wheelchair. This practice is inefficient and encourages staff to hurry to complete the process, thereby setting the stage for unsafe practices. Furthermore, the time involved in assembling multiple individuals with disabilities often deters their participation in group activities.MethodsThe Wheelchair Convoy System (WCS) is being developed to allow a single caregiver to move multiple individuals without removing them from their wheelchairs. The WCS will consist of a processor, and a flexible cord linking each wheelchair to the wheelchair in front of it. A Participatory Design approach – in which several iterations of design, fabrication and evaluation are used to elicit feedback from users – was used.ResultsAn iterative cycle of development and evaluation was followed through five prototypes of the device. The third and fourth prototypes were evaluated in unmanned field trials at J. Iverson Riddle Development Center. The prototypes were used to form a convoy of three wheelchairs that successfully completed a series of navigation tasks.ConclusionA Participatory Design approach to the project allowed the design of the WCS to quickly evolve towards a viable solution. The design that emerged by the end of the fifth development cycle bore little resemblance to the initial design, but successfully met the project's design criteria. Additional development and testing is planned to further refine the system.
Highlights
In long-term care environments, residents who have severe mobility deficits are typically transported by having another person push the individual in a manual wheelchair
The third prototype was mounted on a manual wheelchair with JWI hubs because only one JWI was available for testing, the fourth prototype was mounted on the powered wheelchair used by the first two prototypes
The design criteria that emerged for the Wheelchair Convoy System (WCS) by the end of the fourth development/evaluation cycle were: Cost The system must fit within the operating budgets of intermediate care facilities (ICFs)
Summary
In long-term care environments, residents who have severe mobility deficits are typically transported by having another person push the individual in a manual wheelchair. This practice is inefficient and encourages staff to hurry to complete the process, thereby setting the stage for unsafe practices. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation 2008, 5:1 http://www.jneuroengrehab.com/content/5/1/1 people [1] Most of this increase will be due to aging baby boomers and includes a significant increase in adults with various types of disabilities. In ICFs, nursing homes, and other long-term care environments, residents who have severe mobility deficits move about by being pushed in a manual wheelchair by a caregiver. Moving a group of residents between locations is labor intensive, and requires at least three caregivers: one to stay with residents at the starting location, a second to stay with residents at the goal location, and a third to move one person at a time from the start location to the goal location
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