Evaluation of power wheelchair driving performance in simulator compared to driving in real-life situations: the SIMADAPT (simulator ADAPT) project-a pilot study.
Bastien Fraudet, Emilie Leblong, Patrice Piette and 6 others
PMID 38654367WHAT IT FOUND
In 31 expert power wheelchair users, a virtual simulator produced collisions similar to real driving on easy and moderate circuits, but more collisions on the hardest circuit.
Cybersickness was low, but mental effort was higher.
Key findings
01On circuits C1 and C2, collisions did not differ significantly between real and virtual driving; on circuit C3, collisions were significantly higher in the virtual simulator.
02Mental workload was significantly higher in the simulator than in real driving on all three circuits (C1 p < 0.001, C2 p = 0.01, C3 p = 0.03).
03Cybersickness was rated relatively low, with mean SSQ scores of 4.25, 3.43 and 4.72 on a scale up to 48, but the authors did not confirm the hypothesis that it was tolerable.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study was a single center pilot with 31 included participants, so it is small and cannot settle how the simulator performs. All participants were expert power wheelchair users, so it does not show what happens for novices or people who have difficulty driving. One participant could not perform circuit C2 and two could not perform circuit C3 because of fatigue. The circuits were presented in fixed increasing difficulty order, and the authors note a learning effect may explain results. The simulator was a prototype tested on replicated circuits, not everyday environments. The study did not test whether simulator training transfers to real driving.
Declared interests
Funding was named as Interreg. The simulator was developed within the European Interreg ADAPT project.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the simulator can replace real power wheelchair driving assessment or training. Collisions and skill scores were similar on circuits C1 and C2, but collisions were significantly higher on circuit C3, and mental load was higher in all circuits.