research-article

"But, I Don't Want/Need a Power Wheelchair": Toward Accessible Power Assistance for Manual Wheelchairs

Authors:

Dafne Zuleima Morgado Ramirez,

Catherine HollowayAuthors Info & Claims

ASSETS '17: Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

Pages 120 - 129

https://doi.org/10.1145/3132525.3132529

Published: 19 October 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Power assist devices help manual wheelchair users to propel their wheelchair thus increasing their independence and reducing the risk of upper limb injuries due to excessive use. These benefits can be invaluable for people that already have upper limb joint pain and reduced muscular strength. However, it is not clear if the way that assistance is provided by such devices is what manual wheelchair users need and expect. 12 manual wheelchair users were interviewed to understand: the situations in which they find it difficult to propel their wheelchairs; situations they considered paramount to have power assistance; their experience or knowledge of power assist devices; and likes and dislikes of commercially available power assist devices. Finally, they were asked to comment on their ideal form factor of a power assist device. Users have suggested improvements of the devices' accessibility and visualized new ways in which they could interact with the technology. These interactions involve "chairable" devices independent from, but not excluding, wearable devices and mobile applications. We have identified the need of monitoring emotions and the need for designing an open source do-it-yourself wheelchair propelling assistance device which we believe is required equally in developed and in developing countries.

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"But, I Don't Want/Need a Power Wheelchair": Toward Accessible Power Assistance for Manual Wheelchairs

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cover image ACM Conferences

ASSETS '17: Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

October 2017

450 pages

ISBN:9781450349260

DOI:10.1145/3132525

General Chair:
Amy Hurst
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Leah Findlater
University of Washington, USA
,
Meredith Ringel Morris
Microsoft Research, USA

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 19 October 2017

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ASSETS '17

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SIGACCESS

ASSETS '17: The 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

October 20 - November 1, 2017

Maryland, Baltimore, USA

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ASSETS '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 28 of 126 submissions, 22%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 436 of 1,556 submissions, 28%

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3651396
Shahria MBanik NSunny MRahman M(2024)Navigating Daily Life: Insights from Powered Wheelchair Users on Assistive Technologies and Caregiver SupportExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650863(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3650863
Bilius LUngurean OVatavu R(2023)Understanding Wheelchair Users’ Preferences for On-Body, In-Air, and On-Wheelchair GesturesProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580929(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3580929
Zhang YLi ZGuo HWang LChen QJiang WFan MZhou GGong J(2023)"I am the follower, also the boss": Exploring Different Levels of Autonomy and Machine Forms of Guiding Robots for the Visually ImpairedProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580884(1-22)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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Abou LRice L(2022)The differences in demographics, fear of falling, transfer quality and participation enfranchisement between manual and power wheelchair users with multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuryDisability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology10.1080/17483107.2022.213899819:3(1003-1008)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2022
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Kabir KAlsaleem AWiese J(2021)The Impact of Spinal Cord Injury on Participation in Human-Centered ResearchProceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3461778.3462122(1902-1914)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2021
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