La selección de la silla de ruedas y la satisfacción de indivíduos con lesión medular

Objective

Evaluate the spinal cord injuried individuals’ with their wheelchair, and identify the relevant points of the selection and acquiring process of the equipament.

Materials and methods

This is an evaluation study. Twenty-five spinal cord injuried individuals with paraplegia or quadriplegia, who use wheelchair for mobility and receive physical therapy treatment at the Physiotherapy's Ambulatory of the Londrina State University, were invited to participate in this study. All them agreed to participate and underwent an interview for administering a questionnaire made by the authors of this study, with questions about the selection and acquisition of the wheelchair, as well as satisfaction with their device.

Results

At the time of choosing and acquiring the wheelchair, the aspects taken into consideration of most of the individuals were weight (52%) and praticity (32%). The majority (66.4%) of patients were totally satisfied with their wheelchair. The aspects in which there was greater prevalence of total or partial satisfaction were: durability (84%) and praticity for mounting and dismounting the device (96%).

Conclusion

User satisfaction with his wheelchair is an important factor to be considered in the rehabilitation process of individuals with spinal cord injury.