title: Could mobilty performance measures be used to evaluate wheelchair skills?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the relationship between mobility performance measures and Wheelchair Skill Test (WST) scores and to establish the test-retest and inter-rater reliability of these measures.
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty patients with spinal cord injury participated in this study. Subjects performed the Wheelchair Skill Test and mobility performance tests: maximal velocity (Vmax), spontaneous velocity (Vspont) and a 10-m back and forth slalom (Stime). Eighteen patients with spinal cord injury participated in a second testing session to evaluate test-retest reliability and, among these patients, 8 participated in a third testing session to evaluate inter-rater reliability.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Spearman's correlation coefficients calculated between WST and Vmax, Vspont and Stime were high and significant (p < 0.05). The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC (2.1)) evaluating test-retest reliability for Vmax, Vspont and Stime were 0.94, 0.84 and 0.88, respectively. The ICC evaluating inter-rater reliability for Vmax, Vspont and Stime were 0.92, 0.92 and 0.95, respectively. Reliability results were confirmed by Bland-Altman plots.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Vmax and Stime could be used to evaluate wheelchair skills and to create a new scale, whereas Vspont is the least appropriate of these measurements to describe wheelchair skills.
authors.affiliation: Groupement de Recherche Clinique et Technologique sur le Handicap (EA 4497), CIC-IT 805, CHURaymond Poincaré, Garches, France. didier.pradon@rpc.aphp.fr
authors.forename: Didier
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pradon
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pinsault
authors.forename: Raphaël
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zory
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Routhier
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009048:Motor Skills; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014910:Wheelchairs