Use of a Low-Cost, Chest-Mounted Accelerometer to Evaluate Transfer Skills of Wheelchair Users During Everyday Activities: Observational Study.
Giulia Barbareschi, Catherine Holloway, Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze and 2 others
PMID 30573447WHAT IT FOUND
A chest accelerometer could judge parts of transfer technique and detect wheelchair transfers in nine users, but the study did not test whether this helps patients.
Key findings
01Nine manual wheelchair users each performed 12 transfers across bed, toilet, and car scenarios while wearing a chest accelerometer.
02The most accurate model reached 75.9% accuracy for head-hip relationship and 79.6% for smooth landing.
03For detecting whether a transfer happened, Naïve Bayes averaged 91.9% accuracy.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The sample was small and mostly men with spinal cord injury, so results may not apply to other wheelchair users. The authors state that future work should test the system in the wild and with a larger, more diverse sample. The transfers were performed in recreated bed and toilet settings and in participants' own cars, not during continuous everyday life. The sensor alone could not determine exact transfer start and end points. The controlled flight item could not be automatically evaluated because nearly all transfers were judged good.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that a chest-mounted accelerometer is a validated clinical assessment tool or that it can replace therapist observation. The study was a small observational algorithm development work, and it did not test patient outcomes or real-world continuous use.