Wheelchair Skills Program

The following full paper will be available open access on October 8, 2025 at the doi address below: Relationships between wheelchair provision time for hospital inpatients and their lengths of stay and costs of hospitalization: a cohort study. Arch Phys Med Rehabil, 2025 May 6:S000:1-9. https://Doi:10.1016/j.apmr.2025.04.019.

We are pleased to announce a new publication: Manual wheelchair-skills courses (“bootcamps”) for wheelchair service providers: An observational study on learners’ satisfaction and perceived effectiveness. Disabil Rehabil Assist Technol. 2025:1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/17483107.2025.2561928. (epub ahead of print)

The Wheelchair Skills Program Manual, Forms and Learning Quiz have been updated to Version 5.4.3 and posted on the website (https://wheelchairskillsprogram.ca/en/skills-manual-forms/).

Survey on Rear Anti-tip Devices for Manual Wheelchairs

The Wheelchair Research Team at Dalhousie University is seeking feedback from English-speaking wheelchair service providers through a short survey about rear anti-tip devices (RADs) for manual wheelchairs.
This 20-minute survey focuses on a new design, the Arc-RAD, that the team hopes to refine and commercialize. Your insights could directly influence the next generation of RADs and ensure that they truly meet the needs of riders and providers alike. We also hope that you will find the survey interesting and informative.
👉 survey link (https://redcap.its.dal.ca/surveys/?s=LENENLHN97MALWAM)
Your answers will be strictly confidential. If you’ve already completed the survey or received this from another source, thank you and please feel free to forward it to others in your network.
Questions? Reach out to the research team at [email protected].
Thank you for supporting better mobility solutions for our community.

Here is a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNw-74_MYCY) showing how stacking wheelchairs can be useful when moving them from one location to another, such as here following an Inter-professional Education workshop at Dalhousie University in January 2025;

Stacked wheelchairs on the move When transporting wheelchairs from one location to another, as seen here, it can be helpful to stack one wheelchair atop another, so more wheelchairs can be ...

Here's a nice new resource that includes material relevant to the WSP:

Seating and Wheeled Mobility: A Clinical Resource Guide Fully updated and expanded in its second edition, Seating and Wheeled Mobility: A Clinical Resource Guide presents clinical assessment considerations when working with a person with a mobility disability. The book provides a wide spectrum of information, from foundational information for those pra...

Here's a new video on stacking manual wheelchairs:

Stacked wheelchairs Getting a group of wheelchairs from one site to another for workshops can be made simpler by stacking wheelchairs in pairs. Here are some examples of that.

Nineteen (19) new videos have been added to the WSP YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxlnALbMRBCe_JDD548CQ-w), bringing our total to 854. We would welcome brief contributions from others of videos illustrating people performing wheelchair skills; they can be sent to [email protected] along with permissions for their use.

Jenna Smith is a Masters student in the ADAPT Lab at the University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr. Kelly Arbour-Nicitopoulos. She is looking to interview community-based physical activity professionals on their knowledge and awareness of wheelchair skills training. Anyone who is interested can reach her directly at [email protected].

The article "Wheelchair skills training for caregivers of manual wheelchair users: a randomized controlled trial comparing self-study and remote training", published in Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, Volume 19 Issue 8, is now available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17483107.2024.2321272.

The French-Canadian Subcommittee has just uploaded version 5.4.2 of the WSP Manual and forms in French to the WSP website (https://wheelchairskillsprogram.ca/fr/). Congratulations!

The latest version of the Wheelchair Skills Program Manual (Version 5.4.2) and the related Forms have now been posted on our website (https://wheelchairskillsprogram.ca/en/skills-manual-forms/). The previous versions have been moved to the Archives section. Comments and suggestions would be welcomed anytime.