Skill profiles of a wheelchair, notably leading to the initial choice after a spinal cord injury (SCI), include the patient's comfort, his/her safety as well as physical and social performances. The multidisciplinary team of first rehabilitation within a spinal unit wondered about the quality of the patients’ positioning. The team consequently wished to create an indoor reference document as well as a simple helping tool, so as to choose correctly the wheelchair, to settle any patient in a convenient manner and to check this settling.

Frontal and profile photos were taken of SCI individuals in the sitting position in a manual or a powered wheelchair. A multidisciplinary specialist team working in a spinal unit (doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and caregivers) analyzed each patient positioning within his/her wheelchair, mentored by trained medical quality practitioners. A review of the literature relating any component and accessories of the wheelchairs was then carried-out and compared with data from the previous analysis.

An illustrated reference notebook was created, describing the choice of the wheelchair according to the motor level of the SCI patient, then according to the characteristics of his/her positioning and the adaptation of components and accessories. A checklist form was also developed to make easier the procedure of settling and then its revision, as a potential tool for the transmissions of detected anomalies between the various professionals. Both documents will be assessed by using them for the analysis of a new series of photos.

The whole staff of the neurological PMR department will then be trained with these documents that will afterwards be placed in the documentary management system of our University Hospital. They could be useful as information tools for already involved staffs either or as training tools for professionals newly dealing with SCI patients.