Powered wheelchairs

This chapter builds on the preceding two chapters, which covered wheelchair assessment and prescription. It describes the reasons why a powered wheelchair might be considered before dealing with those factors of wheelchair prescription specific to powered chairs. Wheel layout, powered seating configurations, safety considerations, control interfaces, and specialized controls are described in detail. Various pieces of equipment have been produced over the last 20 years to provide powered assistance to manual wheelchairs, operable either by the user or by the attendant. These are included in the discussion as there are occasions where the line between powered and manual chairs becomes blurred.