Classification of Upper Body Shapes Among Korean Male Wheelchair Users to Improve Clothing Fit.

The upper body shape is an important factor to be considered in customized suit jacket design. The present study is intended to identify the lateral upper body shapes of wheelchair users in a sagittal plane. Anthropometric data of 144 Korean male wheelchair users were collected using a tape measure and photography. Three lateral upper body shapes were identified by cluster analysis: convex back with largely protruded abdomen (31%), convex back with flat abdomen (36%), and straight back with moderately protruded abdomen (33%). Discriminant functions were constructed for the three lateral upper body shape groups, and their overall and cross-validated classification accuracies were identified as 94.4% and 89.6%, respectively. The present study found that the wheelchair users have more convex back (67%) and protruded abdomen (64%) shapes than non-wheelchair individuals. The lateral upper body shapes and discriminant functions identified in the study can be applied to a custom production process of suit jacket design for wheelchair users.