Abstract. The purpose of this study was to develop a wheelchair ergometer (WERG) test to evaluate fitness for manual wheelchair activity.Thirty able-bodied females participated in a progressive intensity, discontinuous test where exercise bouts were 4 min in duration interspersed with 5-min rest periods. Physiological responses of oxygen uptake (V02), respiratory exchange ratio (R), net mechanical efficiency (ME), pulmonary ventilation (VO) and heart rate (HR) were determined during the final minute of exercise at power output (PO) levels of 3 0, 60, 90, 120 and 150 kpm/min. These responses were generally found to be linearly related to PO, however, net ME initially increased with PO and plateaued at approximately I I per cent at 90 kpm/min. Criteria for fitness evaluation were based upon: (I) magnitude of physiological responses at each PO level; and (2) the maximal PO level completed.

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The purpose of this study was to test the effect of a motivational message on the intention of laypersons to learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED) use. A pretest-posttest, double-blind, randomized design was used with 220 community-dwelling adults. Participants were randomly assigned to the treatment group reading the CPR and AED pamphlet emphasizing learning CPR and AED use to save someone they love and the 3-minute window for response time; or to the comparison group reading the identical pamphlet without the 2 motivational statements. Intention to learn CPR and AED use and to look for AEDs in public areas was measured before and after reading the respective pamphlet. No significant difference emerged between the groups for the number of participants planning to learn CPR and AED use. A significant number of participants in both groups increased intention to learn CPR and AED use. Significantly more treatment participants than comparison participants planned to routinely look for AEDs in public areas after reading the pamphlet, however. Teaching critical facts such as the low survival rate for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest might encourage laypersons to learn CPR and AED use. Routinely teaching family members of people at risk for a cardiac arrest about the short window of time in which CPR and AED use must begin and encouraging them to learn about CPR and AEDs to save someone they love may encourage family members to identify the location of AEDs in public places.