François Routhier, PEng, PhD, R. Lee Kirby, MD, Louise Demers, OT(C), PhD, Claude Vincent, OT(C), PhD, and David Westwood, PhD

ABSTRACT

The Wheelchair Skills Program (WSP) is an integrated system more and more used in clinics and for research purposes. It includes elements that can be used for testing and training wheelchair users, clinicians and/or their caregivers. It allows one to train to and evaluate a wide range of manual wheelchair skills. However, it is available only in English. This paper presents a 10-step iterative methodological approach to translate the WSP into French, that is as equivalent as possible to the English version. This suggested methodology should help to internationalize the WSP by facilitating its translations in languages used by non English speaking populations in developed and developing nations.

KEYWORDS

Wheelchair skills, wheelchair, rehabilitation, translation, assessment tool, French.

Contact Information:

François Routhier, PEng, PhD
Nova Scotia Rehabilitation Centre,
Clinical Locomotor Function Laboratory,
Room 036, 1341 Summer Street,
Halifax, NS, Canada, B3H 4K4.
Phone: 902-473-1318.
Fax: 902-473-3204.
Email: Francois.Routhier@rea.ulaval.ca.