The Compact Wheelchair Roller Dynamometer

• Published in: Sports medicine international open Vol. 1; no. 4; pp. E119 - E127
• Main Authors: Oliveira, Saulo Fernandes Melo, Bione, Afonso Augusto Guimarães, Oliveira, Lúcia Inês Guedes Leite, da Costa, Adalberto Veronese, de Sá Pereira Guimarães, Fernando José, da Cunha Costa, Manoel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Stuttgart · New York Georg Thieme Verlag KG 01.07.2017
• Subjects: Training & Testing; effort test; therapeutic exercise; locomotion; people with disabilities
• ISSN: 2367-1890; 2367-1890
• DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-111404

Abstract The equipment for evaluating the propulsion of a wheelchair is very complex and expensive. To validate a new dynamometer prototype for assessing the propulsion capacity of wheelchairs, 21 healthy subjects (age: 20.9±2.4 yr; weight: 68.9±7.9 kg; height: 174.0±7.1 cm; BMI: 22.7±2.5 kg·m −2 ) who do not normally require wheelchairs performed a sprint protocol for 20 s after a 1-min warm-up. The power and rotation data acquired by the prototype (both right and left sides) were compared with those of a reference system via high-speed videography (240 fps). The results showed high levels of accordance (95% CI), excellent values for the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC: .99; P <0.00), no significant differences in the rotation ( P =0.91) and power ( P =0.94) between the methods. The proposed equipment met the validation criteria and thus can be applied as a new tool for assessing wheelchair propulsion.