Research Priorities: Seating and Positioning

Abstract

The Wheeled Mobility State of the Science Conference, hosted by the mobilityRERC at the Georgia Institute of Technology, was a forum to identify and discuss important research topics. The Conference was configured around Breakout Groups which were assigned specific research topics. These topics were selected via dot-voting by Conference attendees. The charge to the Breakout Groups was simple, yet unattainable: “Configure your research topic into a research project”. They were provided with general guidelines to identify research questions, specific aims or hypotheses, significance, study design possibilities, recruitment considerations, measurement variables and tools, analysis considerations, and anticipated challenges. This article summarizes the discussions from the Seating and Positioning Breakout Groups. The four research topics selected for discussion were: Impact of a seating and mobility intervention, Defining a systematic clinical approach to cushion selection, Functional impact of wheelchair cushions, and Long term impact of sitting. One member of each Group documented the discussion and a summary presentation was made to all Conference attendees. The following synopses were compiled from the Group notes and presentation. They are presented in sequence and reflect variability in discussion, presentation and content. Some research topics were more amenable to the suggested guidelines than others.