Driving characteristics of electric-powered wheelchair users: how far, fast, and often do people drive?

Objectives: To determine the driving characteristics of electric-powered wheelchair users during unrestricted community activities and to compare the activity levels among an active group and a group of regular users.

Design: Multisite engineering evaluation of electric-powered wheelchair driving activity during unrestricted community mobility.

Setting: Data were collected in the communities of Pittsburgh, PA, and the National Veterans Wheelchair Games (NVWG) in San Antonio, TX.

Participants: Seventeen people participated, all of whom used electric-powered wheelchairs as their primary means of mobility.

Intervention: Each subject was asked standarized questions about self and wheelchair use. Data logger and sensor installed on wheelchair. Data downloaded from logger.

Main outcome measures: Speed, distance traveled, and the time that each subject's personal wheelchair was being driven were recorded for 24hr/d over approximately 5 days for each subject by using a custom-built data logger.

Results: The NVWG group traveled faster than the Pittsburgh group, but this difference was only statistically significant on the first day. The NVWG group was more likely to travel longer than the Pittsburgh group with significant differences seen in day 4 (P = .03) and day 5 (P = .05). Total distance traveled during the 5-day period and average distance traveled per day were also significantly different between the groups (P = .02 for both 5-day distance and daily distance), with the NVWG group traveling longer (17,164 +/- 8708m) when compared with the Pittsburgh group (8335 +/- 7074m) over the 5-day period. Both distance traveled and speed increased during afternoon and evening hours. The maximum distance traveled by any subject for each hour across the 2 groups was used to create the theoretic maximum distance day, which resulted in 7970m of driving.

Conclusion: Drivers of electric-powered wheelchairs are most active during the afternoon and evening hours. Over the 5-day period of this study, there was little variation in the speed or distance driven per day. The subjects participating in the NVWG were more active than their counterparts during a typical week at home. The maximum theoretic distance that a wheelchair user in our group would travel is less than 8km. The range of current electric-powered wheelchairs appears adequate, if not generous, for the subjects in our study.