Does the use of a wheelchair with electric foot support reduce the caregiver burden of foot support?

Abstract

  Manual wheelchairs require the raising and lowering of the foot support when moving the patient on and off the wheelchair. When a caregiver performs the movements involved in this, such as crouching or squatting, a burden is placed on the caregiver's back. In order to address this burden with the aid of Assistive Technology, we used an electric foot support and verified its effectiveness in reducing caregivers' burden. The foot support device is thin and can be stepped on when moving to a standing position. In addition, this foot support can be raised and lowered electrically. Therefore, it is unnecessary to manually raise and lower the patient's foot, and we expected that the burden of care would be reduced as a result. In this study, we assessed the difference between the caregiver's subjective experience of caregiver burden when using a manual foot support and when using an electric elevating foot support. The results confirmed that the electric elevating foot support reduced the caregiver burden compared to the manual foot support, based on subjective results, including time results.