On 3 wheels everyday - Meeting the criteria of remote Australian wheelchair users
Stephen Hales,
Occupational Therapist, ILC Queensland.
In recent years several wheelchair users in remote Australia have been fortunate enough to find funds for costly beach wheelchairs. Some products have seen very little use however; the author observing a new chair disassembled and packed away in a cupboard covered in cobwebs, while the wheelchair user moved about the sandy area outside his home in his everyday wheelchair. This paper reviews trials of the prototype WorldMade 3 wheel rural wheelchair made by the UK based development organisation Motivation. Designed for the needs of less well financed wheelchair users in rural areas in developing countries, the wheelchair is individually assembled to size for the user in a regional location, providing an efficient base for manual mobility, with provision for skin care and seating needs. The prototype was trialled across a wide range of terrain and wheelchair user activity levels. A restricted choice of rear wheel and castor options was trialled to meet different environment extremes and budgets. The effectiveness of the one design to provide for diverse user needs and environments is discussed in reference to the challenging criteria for an everyday wheelchair in remote Australia.
The full paper can be downloaded in Microsoft Word and Plain Text formats.