Designing and Analyzing 3D-Printed Personal Steering Controller for Outdoor Electric-Powered Wheelchair Users: A Randomized Controlled Trial on Stroke Patients

Abstract

While the physical conditions of stroke patients are diverse, the joystick-type steering controller of the electric-powered wheelchair (EPW) is almost the same, making the user uncomfortable and not fully utilizing the function of the wheelchair. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the EPW steering controller, specifically the so-called joystick type (3DSC; 3D-printed steering controller, conventional steering controllers; CSC), on surface electromyography (sEMG), Wheelchair Skills Test 4.2 (WST), and QUEST 2.0. The participants were 23 hemiplegic stroke patients (14 males and 9 females) (range 40–65 years) recruited from multi-center process. The 3DSC manufacturing process used a scanner (Precision Laser Probe SLP-500) and a modelling program (SOLIDWORKS 2015). The CSC users’ muscle activities were generally higher than those of the 3DSC users in both males and females (p < 0.05). WST total performance score of CSC is statistically significantly lower than those of 3DSC for both males (3DSC = 49.28 ± 2.19; CSC = 42.85 ± 4.31) (z = −3.935; p < 0.05) and females (3DSC = 48.17 ± 0.44; CSC = 41.11 ± 0.78) (z = −1.910; p < 0.05). QUEST 2.0 scores in CSC (male = 2.40 ± 0.70; female = 2.11 ± 0.78) were significantly lower than those of 3DSC (male = 3.50 ± 0.85; female = 2.90 ± 0.51) in effectiveness categories (p < 0.05). We suggest that 3DSC contributes to reducing the user’s muscle activities and raising the scores of WST performance and QUEST.