The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of varying tire pressures on rolling resistance of pneumatic wheelchair tires and compare the rolling resistance of pneumatic versus solid wheelchair tires.

Our study demonstrated that, statistically significant increases in rolling resistance occurred at and below 50% of the recommended tire pressures (RTP) for the pneumatic tires tested. Also, solid tires performed worse than pneumatic tires at 25% (RTP).

Shoulder pain among the spinal cord injured wheelchair users is reported between 60–100%. Despite the shoulder problems, it’s not uncommon to see WC users with low or flat tires. To reduce the need for regular inflating of tires, people have switched to the popular solid tire. Unfortunately, based on our results, the use of the popular solid tires may still contribute to repetitive strain disorders in wheelchair users.

Compared to the recommended tire pressures the pneumatic tires showed statistically significant decreases in rolling distance at 25% and 50% RTP. The rolling distances of the two solid tires performed similarly to 25% RTP of the pneumatic tires.

This prospective study measured the differences in rolling resistance of five types of commonly used wheelchair tires (three pneumatic: two solid: under four different tire pressures (100%, 75%, 50% and 25% RTP) using a standardized roll down test ramp and a wheelchair with a 56 kg load. Four samples of rolling distances (five per tire pressure per sample) were measured for each tire type and analyzed (repeated measure ANOVA).