Frances Harris, PhD, Research Scientist
Center for Assistive Technology & Environmental Access, Georgia Institute of Technology, 490 Tenth St., Atlanta, GA 30332-0156, USA

This session considers two complementary aspects of participation measurement: the ongoing emergence of self-report instruments and their application to wheeled mobility users; the second consists of the adaptation of recent technical advances, such as wheelchair activity monitors, instrumented seat arrays, and global positioning systems that make it possible to quantify subject activity. When combined with self-reports, these technical measures provide a precise, technologically corroborated description of people’s mobility patterns and their participation in community activities.

These measures are vital to clinicians and researchers. Within the recently revised International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF), activity and participation emerge as key domains across all areas of rehabilitation and outcomes research. Critical to this emergence is a means to usefully measure activity and participation. Current definitions are very general and leave researchers challenged – conceptually and methodologically – to describe it in ways that are both accurate and meaningful.

This session considers key criteria informing a researcher’s choice of self-report measures and technologies. It draws on examples from a project at the Georgia Institute of Technology that is examining the impact of tilt-in-space wheelchairs on the health, activity, and participation of 30 subjects. Preliminary results describe activities quantified in terms of number of destinations and activity type; duration of travel and at destinations; percentage of time spent wheeling during travel and activities; and overall distance wheeled. Combined with established self-report measures that provide a subjective assessment of participatory activities, this methodology provides a robust measure of participation.