IEEE J Biomed Health Inform. 2024 Sep;28(9):5239-5246. doi: 10.1109/JBHI.2024.3407525. Epub 2024 Sep 5.
Upper extremity pain and injury are among the most common musculoskeletal complications manual wheelchair users face. Assessing the temporal parameters of manual wheelchair propulsion, such as propulsion duration, cadence, push duration, and recovery duration, is essential for providing a deep insight into the mobility, level of activity, energy expenditure, and cumulative exposure to repetitive tasks and thus providing personalized feedback. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of inertial measurement units (IMUs) to estimate these temporal parameters by identifying the start and end time of hand contact with the push-rim during each propulsion cycle. We presented a model based on data collected from 23 participants (14 males and 9 females, including 9 experienced manual wheelchair users) to guarantee the reliability and generalizability of our method. The obtained outcomes from our IMU-based model were then compared against an instrumented wheelchair (SMARTWheel) as a reference criterion. The results illustrated that our model was able to accurately detect hand contact and hand release and predict temporal parameters, including the push duration and recovery duration in manual wheelchair users, with the mean error ± standard deviation of 10 ± 60 milliseconds and -20 ± 80 milliseconds, respectively. The findings of this study demonstrate the potential of hand-mounted IMUs as a reliable and objective tool for analyzing temporal parameters in manual wheelchair propulsion. IMUs offer significant strides towards inclusivity and accessibility due to their portability and user-friendliness and can democratize health monitoring of manual wheelchair users by making it accessible to a broader range of users compared to traditional technologies.
上肢疼痛和损伤是手动轮椅使用者最常见的肌肉骨骼并发症之一。评估手动轮椅推进的时间参数，如推进持续时间、步频、推程和恢复持续时间，对于深入了解活动能力、活动水平、能量消耗以及对重复性任务的累积暴露程度至关重要，从而提供个性化的反馈。本文旨在研究使用惯性测量单元（IMU）通过识别每个推进周期中手与推柄接触的开始和结束时间来估计这些时间参数。我们提出了一种基于从 23 名参与者（14 名男性和 9 名女性，包括 9 名有经验的手动轮椅使用者）收集的数据的模型，以保证我们方法的可靠性和通用性。然后，将基于 IMU 的模型获得的结果与仪器化轮椅（SMARTWheel）进行比较，作为参考标准。结果表明，我们的模型能够准确检测到手的接触和释放，并预测手动轮椅使用者的时间参数，包括推程和恢复持续时间，平均误差为±60 毫秒，平均误差为-20 ±80 毫秒。这项研究的结果表明，手部安装的 IMU 作为一种可靠和客观的工具，具有分析手动轮椅推进的时间参数的潜力。IMU 由于其便携性和用户友好性，在包容性和可及性方面取得了重大进展，可以通过使其更广泛的用户群体能够使用，使手动轮椅使用者的健康监测民主化，而不是像传统技术那样仅为少数用户提供。
