Measurement of wheelchair users' calorie consumption to develop a wheelchair activity device

摘要

The goal of our study is to provide wheelchair users with a novel device that allows them to easily see their calorie consumption while exercising to prevent metabolic syndrome. We previously proposed a system that measures wheelchair movement using a rotary encoder and accelerometer, and counted the number of wheelchair strokes for three levels of acceleration intensity. This paper presents the experimental results from our measurement of the calorie consumption and wheelchair activity of nine spinal cord injury (SCI) individuals in the Kibikogen Rehabilitation Center. Our proposed method can estimate the calories consumed by driving wheelchair based on the number of wheelchair strokes at three levels of intensity, identified by an acceleration signal.