We hypothesized that the effects of immediate video feedback (IVF) on training ramp, wheelie, and curb wheelchair skills for persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) would be equivalent to or better than the traditional wheelchair skill training. Participants were manual wheelchair users with recent SCI (thoracic 1-lumbar 1) who were matched (9 pairs) on motor function level, age, and sex and randomly assigned to a control group (conventional training) or an experimental group (IVF training). Participants learned three wheelchair skills and then went through the wheelchair skill competency test, retention test, and transfer test. Paired t-tests were used to examine the differences in training time (minutes), spotter intervention needed (counts), and successful rate in performance between the two groups. A 2 (groups) x 3 (skills) x 3 (tests) repeated-measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni adjustment test were used to examine differences between groups on wheelchair skills and tests. No differences were found between two groups in training times (minutes) on three wheelchair skills (experimental vs control: ramp 14.92 +/- 5.80 vs 11.69 +/- 7.85; wheelie 17.79 +/- 6.03 vs 19.92 +/- 13.42; and curb 38.35 +/-23.01 vs 48.59 +/- 15.21). This study demonstrated that IVF for training manual wheelchair skills may produce similar results as the conventional training and may be an alternative training method for wheelchair skills.
Keywords: conventional training; learning; manual wheelchair; physical therapy; rehabilitation; skill performance; spinal cord injury; verbal instruction; video feedback; wheelchair skill training.