Manual Wheelchair Skills Training for Long-term-care Residents

Manual Wheelchair Skills Training for Long-term-care Residents: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of Efficacy

It is hypothesized that, compared to a control group, manual wheelchair users and their caregivers in the long-term-care setting who receive the wheelchair skills training program will improve their wheelchair skills to a statistically significant extent and will retain these improvements for at least one month.

Study Overview

• Status: Terminated
• Conditions: Healthy; Wheelchair Users
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: wheelchair skills training

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 8
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Nova Scotia
    • Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 2E1
      • Camp Hill Veteran's Memorial Building, Capital Health

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 17 years and older (Child, Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria (wheelchair user):

• be seventeen (17) or older
• be a manual wheelchair user, living in a long-term-care facility;
• be expected to require the long-term use of a wheelchair (at least four [4] hours/week for at least eight [8] weeks), as reported by a clinical therapist;
• be competent to give informed consent (as indicated by a Mini Mental State Examination score of 20 or higher) or have a proxy with power of attorney willing to provide consent,
• have the verbal endorsement of the clinical therapist (if any) to participate;
• have the written permission of the attending physician to participate;
• be willing to take part in the study, including signing the consent after carefully reading it.

Exclusion Criteria (wheelchair user):

• have an unstable medical condition (e.g. angina, seizures), as determined by the attending physician, house staff or ERN;
• have an emotional or psychiatric problem of a type or extent that might make participation unpleasant, as determined by the attending physician, house staff or ERN.

Inclusion Criteria (caregiver):

• be seventeen (17) or older;
• provide at least part-time [at least one (1) hour/week] wheelchair-handling care for a wheelchair user in a long-term-care facility;
• be willing to take part in the study, including signing the consent form after carefully reading it.

Exclusion Criteria (caregiver):

• have an unstable medical condition (e.g. angina, seizures), as indicated by self-report;
• have an emotional or psychiatric problem of a type or extent that might make participation unpleasant, as indicated by self-report.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: Double

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Wheelchair Skills Test

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
demographics
Mini-Mental State Examination score

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Nova Scotia Health Authority
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Cher Smith, Capital Health, Department of Occupational Therapy

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Smith C, Kirby RL. Manual wheelchair skills capacity and safety of residents of a long-term-care facility. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2011 Apr;92(4):663-9. doi: 10.1016/j.apmr.2010.11.024. Epub 2011 Mar 2.

Helpful Links

• Related Info

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: May 1, 2007
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 1, 2009
• Study Completion (Actual): July 1, 2009

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 15, 2006
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 15, 2006
• First Posted (Estimate): November 16, 2006

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): July 6, 2011
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 4, 2011
• Last Verified: July 1, 2009

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: caregivers; wheelchair; skills; long-term-care
• Other Study ID Numbers: CDHA014