Manual Wheelchair Movement Performance Differences Between Older Adults with Earlier- and Later-in-Life Incidence

Abstract

Independent mobility is crucial for healthy aging. Although there are anticipated differences between older adults with earlier-in-life (EL) versus later-in-life (LL) incidence of mobility disability, the degree to which incidence periods impact performance within environments is unknown. While current evaluation methods rely heavily on subjective ratings, historically excluded populations are prone to underrepresent their own challenges. This paper describes an experiment comparing the assumed, perceived, and effective performance of manual wheelchair movement tasks to examine differences between EL and LL groups. Preliminary results found higher muscular exertion in the LL group compared to the EL group for similar movements, particularly in the anterior and posterior deltoid muscles. There was a greater mismatch between the assumed and perceived mental and physical demand for the LL group. For both groups, results suggest poorer mental models for moderate-difficulty tasks compared to high-difficulty tasks, suggesting a need for increased perceptual feedback within moderate-difficulty environments.

Environmental Intervention Evaluation to Support Motor Planning of Wheelchair Movements: A Pilot Study

“…To follow up a baseline study conducted towards investigation of intervention effectiveness, here we propose the introduction of our novel methods aimed at examining the intervention impact on internal task representation and thus ensuing motor actions (Tabattanon et al, 2022). This method has potential to create a basis towards informing future intervention design.…”

“…If this trend extends to a larger population, then the interventions may be promising in aligning performance to bottom-up perception. The earlier baseline study suggested that some manual wheelchair users committed a higher number of errors but still perceived a comparable level of performance quality to those who did not commit as many errors (Tabattanon et al, 2022). Such a mismatch may lead to an underestimation of the necessary motor corrections required to perform at an expected level and consequently reduced safety and misapplied confidence.…”

“…Path-following: The 7m constrained pathway is illustrated in Figure 3. Path conditions tested are derived from the baseline study (Tabattanon et al, 2022). The width of the path is determined by the participant's dynamic occupied width, measured at the widest points under the height of the panels.…”