Winter Mobility and Community Participation Among People Who Use Mobility Devices: A Scoping Review.
Jacquie Ripat, Kathryn M Sibley, Ed Giesbrecht and 6 others
PMID 33543060WHAT IT FOUND
Most winter mobility research focuses on equipment and environment, but very little evaluates whether products actually work or tests safe strategies.
Consumer advice is mostly anecdotal, and policy rarely prioritizes snow clearing for pedestrians using mobility devices.
Key findings
01The majority of included studies focused on environmental factors, particularly products and technology, rather than evaluating their performance or teaching safe strategies.
02There is a lack of high-quality evidence for winter mobility aids; only one randomized controlled trial was identified among the peer-reviewed studies.
03Civic policies often place the burden of snow clearing on the property owner or the transit user, rather than ensuring accessible pedestrian routes.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The gray literature search was non-exhaustive and limited to English and French materials. Only Canadian government and policy documents were included due to the team's location. Provincial health documents were not searched due to technical difficulties. Stakeholder consultation was not part of this specific review. Most included studies were observational or descriptive, with only one RCT, limiting conclusions about efficacy.
Declared interests
The authors did not report any conflicts of interest or funding sources in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that commercially available winter mobility products are effective. The review found that most products lack research evidence, and there is only one randomized controlled trial in the entire body of literature. Advice found on consumer websites is largely anecdotal and untested.