An anthropometric study of manual and powered wheelchair users

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the structural anthropometric dimensions of adult wheelchair users as part of a larger project that involved developing a database of the structural characteristics and functional abilities of wheelchair users. Measurements were made on 121 adult manual and powered wheelchair users with an electromechanical probe that registered the three-dimensional locations of 36 body and wheelchair landmarks. Thirty-one body and wheelchair dimensions (e.g., heights, breadths, depths) were calculated from the three-dimensional coordinate data. Tests of distributional normality showed that less than 1/3 of the dimensions were not normally distributed. ANOVA showed significant differences between powered and manual chair users, and women and men for only some of the anthropometric dimensions. The results of this study provide anthropometric information for a small and diverse group of wheelchair users using new measurement methods that may have value for three-dimensional human modeling and CAD applications.