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Comparison Between Objective Biomechanical Cost and Perceived Physical Demand in Manual Wheelchair Users During Propulsion Tasks
Sponsor: Centre Médico-Chirurgical de Réadaptation des Massues Croix Rouge Française
Summary
Wheelchair users must be able to move around freely and access public buildings and transport, but current accessibility standards (e.g. maximum 8% ramp slope) are based on limited scientific evidence about the real biomechanical and perceived difficulties encountered by manual wheelchair users in daily life. Manual wheelchair propulsion is not purely a motor activity: it also involves cognitive and emotional demands (attention, trajectory planning, stress and frustration management) that contribute to a mental workload. This cognitive dimension is still rarely integrated into biomechanical evaluation protocols. This exploratory (pilot) study aims to test the feasibility of a protocol combining objective biomechanical data (shoulder joint loading estimated from motion capture and instrumented handrims) with the subjective experience of participants (perceived physical demand from the NASA-TLX questionnaire, perceived exertion from the Borg scale), during standardized and more realistic manual wheelchair propulsion tasks, including tasks performed under an added cognitive load (auditory-verbal 2-back dual task).
Official title: Comparison Between an Objective Biomechanical Cost and the Physical Perception of a Manual Wheelchair User During Propulsion Tasks
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
18 Years - 70 Years
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
15
Start Date
2026-10-19
Completion Date
2026-10-23
Last Updated
2026-10-27
Healthy Volunteers
No
Conditions
Interventions
Instrumented Manual Wheelchair Propulsion Tasks (Motion Analysis and Instrumented Handrims)
Participants perform standardized manual wheelchair propulsion tasks (straight-line propulsion, propulsion with a concurrent cognitive dual task, propulsion on a ramp, on varied floor surfaces, with turns, and along a path with an object to reach) while equipped with reflective motion-capture markers and using wheels instrumented with 6-axis force sensors on the handrim, in order to estimate biomechanical loading at the shoulder and relate it to subjective measures of perceived demand.
Concurrent Cognitive Task (Auditory-Verbal 2-back)
An auditory-verbal 2-back task is added concurrently to a propulsion task (dual task) to examine the effect of cognitive load on propulsion technique and on cognitive performance, compared to single-task propulsion.
Locations (1)
Centre Médico-Chirurgical de Réadaptation des Massues
Lyon, France