Wheelchair Backs That Support the Spinal Curves: Assessing Postural and Functional Changes

A properly fit wheelchair and seating system can have a profound impact on the daily life of people with spinal cord injury (SCI). A backrest that supports the natural spinal curves is thought to enhance posture, functional mobility, and comfort for manual wheelchair (MWC) users. In fact, therapists routinely prescribe after-market posture-backs based on clinical reasoning. However, there is little research comparing the efficacy of an after-market posture-back to the standard upholstery back, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify these to group insurance payers.

Based on this, investigators performed a pilot study to investigate whether there were postural and/or functional differences between using a standard upholstery WC back and an after-market solid posture-back. The results of that study have been presented at the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) annual conference in November 2019 and the Combined Sections Meeting (CSM) of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) in February 2020, and were also published in the Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine in 2020.

Although the results of that study demonstrated clinical relevance and statistical trends for improvements in postural alignment and functional outcomes when using a solid back, there was not enough power to establish statistical significance. It also did not evaluate the effect of backrest height and position or depth of contour in order to inform clinical practice. The overall objective of this fully powered clinical trial is to further investigate if using a solid backrest on MWC will improve postural alignment, function and wheelchair mobility, as compared with an upholstery backrest; and to explore the impact of overall back height, seat gap, and contour when using a solid backrest.