Shoulder Pain in Persons With Tetraplegia and the Association With Force Application During Manual Wheelchair Propulsion

Objective

To investigate the association between propulsion biomechanics, including force application and spatio-temporal characteristics, and shoulder pain in persons with tetraplegia.

Design

Cross-sectional, observational study.

Setting

Non-university research institution.

Participants

16 community dwelling, wheelchair dependent persons with a chronic tetraplegia between C4 and C7, with and without shoulder pain (age, 49.1±11.7 years; 94% men, 23.4±9.5 years past injury).

Interventions

Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures

Force application and spatio-temporal characteristics of wheelchair propulsion on a treadmill (0.56 m/s, 10W and 0.83 m/s, 15W). Participants were stratified in groups with low, moderate, and high pain based on their Wheelchair User Shoulder Pain Index (WUSPI) score on the day of measurement.

Results

The mixed-effect multilevel analysis showed that wheelchair users with high levels of shoulder pain applied propulsion force more effectively (and with a lower medial component) and over a longer push angle, thus shortening the recovery time as compared with persons with low or moderate levels of shoulder pain.

Conclusions

In contrast with previous results from persons with a paraplegia, persons with tetraplegia and high levels of shoulder pain propel their wheelchair more optimal with regard to risk factors for shoulder pain. Our results therefore affirm that there is a different interaction of shoulder pain and propulsion biomechanics in persons with a tetraplegia which should be considered when further analyzing risk factors for shoulder pain in wheelchair users or applying literature results to different patient populations.