Difficulties of Elderly and Motor Impaired People When Getting In and Out of a Car

The objective of this study was to analyze the difficulties of elderly people and people with prostheses when getting in and out of a vehicle. This study is a first step in the analysis of the data from the HANDIMAN project, a French government funded research aimed at improving the mobility of elderly and motor impaired people. Forty subjects aged between 19 to 82 years participated in the experiment. Fourteen of them had hip or/ and knee prosthesis. Car ingress and egress motions were captured for four different types of car. Subjects were asked to answer a questionnaire that aimed at quantifying and locating the discomfort felt during ingress and egress movements. Most of the subjects (30 over 40) considered that car accessibility is an important factor in their car choice. The small car was rated the worst in general, while the commercial car was preferred by most subjects. Stature had a high influence on the discomfort. The subjects were very heterogeneous in term of impairment. A big discrepancy of the difficulties felt in the ingress/egress movements was observed. Some elderly male subjects had back stiffness, thus it was difficult for them to bend under the door frame, requiring greater hip and knee flexion. To further understand the difficulties felt by the subjects, motions and strategies should be analyzed taking into account subject’s physical conditions.