NAKAMURA Hitomi; OKUMOTO Yasuhisa; KAJIMOTO Youhei; MATSUTOMI Tatsuo
Research reports of the Faculty of Engineering, Kinki University 2007
The purpose of this research is to investigate the load of back muscles in driving the wheelchairs. Two types of wheelchairs were used in this research. One of them was a usual self-propelled wheelchair, other one was a new type with lever devices. These studies were performed on 10 healthy young subjects, who had normal neurological history. Electromyography (EMG) recording was carried out in 8 muscles (trapezius, upper and lower portion of deltoid, latissimus dorsi, triceps brachii, common digital extensor, brachioradialis, flexor digitorum profundus) during driving the wheelchairs. As a result, the EMG data indicated that the load of back muscles was lower during driving the new type of wheelchair than usual one. Additionally, these studies were performed on 4 spinal cord injury victims. However the results of them did not indicate similar trends to healthy subjects.