Comparison of fatigue life for 3 types of manual wheelchairs Shirley G. Fitzgerald, PhD, Rory A. Cooper, PhD, Michael L. Boninger, MD, Andrew J. Rentschler, BS Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Volume 82, Issue 10, Pages 1484-1488 (October 2001) DOI: 10.1053/apmr.2001.26139 Copyright © 2001 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Terms and Conditions
Fig. 1 The double-drum machine has 2 rollers with the wheelchair stabilized on top of the rollers. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2001 82, 1484-1488DOI: (10.1053/apmr.2001.26139) Copyright © 2001 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Terms and Conditions
Fig. 2 The curb-drop machine has 4 chains that lift the wheelchair approximately 5cm off the floor so that it may be dropped. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2001 82, 1484-1488DOI: (10.1053/apmr.2001.26139) Copyright © 2001 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Terms and Conditions
Fig. 3 Time to class III failure (survival curve) by wheelchair type. Each curve starts at 1 (ie, 100% survival). As failures occur during the 400,000 cycles, the lines decrease. UWs decreased to approximately .75 (75% survival without failure), LWs to approximately .30 (30% survival without failure), and DWs to approximately .18 (18% survival without failure). Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2001 82, 1484-1488DOI: (10.1053/apmr.2001.26139) Copyright © 2001 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Terms and Conditions
Fig. 4 Failure incidence for each class of failures by wheelchair type. The number of failures that occurred (x axis, range 0-5) are plotted against the percentage of failures (y axis). (A) Class I: UWs had the lowest percentage overall and the highest percentage of 1 occurrence of a class I failure; UWs had a higher percentage than the other chairs for class I failures occurring more than once. (B) Class II: UWs had the lowest percentage, followed by DWs. UWs had the highest percentage for 1 occurrence of class II failures. LWs had the highest percentage for 2 and 3 failures. DW was the only wheelchair with 5 different class II failures. (C) Class III: UWs had the highest percentage, followed by LWs then DWs. For the occurrence of 1 failure, UWs had the lowest and DWs the highest percentage. LWs had 2 class III failures. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2001 82, 1484-1488DOI: (10.1053/apmr.2001.26139) Copyright © 2001 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Terms and Conditions