AN ANALYSIS OF WORK POSTURES OF MANUAL WHEELCHAIR USERS IN THE OFFICEENVIRONMENT

The goal of this project was to examine the difficulties manual wheelc hair users experience in office activities and ascertain whether such problems may be due to poor relationships between the equipment and th e users. Sixty adult manual wheelchair users completed a questionnaire about problems encountered in office activities. Filing and writing w ere the most problematic activities for this group. Phase II of this s tudy consisted of videotaping four subjects performing each activity i n their personal office environments, and having them complete a secon d questionnaire on body-specific locations of discomfort. Videotaped p ostures and reports of discomfort were matched to determine the existe nce of poor equipment-user relationships. In filing, low back pain may have been due to bending forward to access lower drawers while seated . For writing, an inappropriate desk-wheelchair relationship that requ ired subjects to bend forward with their arms on a surface that was to o high may have caused back, shoulder, and neck discomfort.