Lower limb body shape is important in the design of functional pants. The skin, muscles, and body shapes of the lower limbs of wheelchair users may differ from healthy people because of the different shapes of their legs and the prolonged seating position. This study aimed to classify the shapes of the lower limbs of adult female wheelchair users. The lower body measurement of 384 female wheelchair users was obtained. The principal component analysis and two-step cluster analysis were used to categorise the body shapes into three different types and five different size standards. Based on the study findings, female wheelchairs have larger waist, belly, and hip circumferences than healthy individuals, with 89.3% of them having prominent hips. Therefore, the design and production of trousers for wheelchair users should take into consideration the classification of lower limb shapes and sizes reported in this study.Practitioner summary: This work initiated the investigation of human body size assessment of clothes for handicapped persons in China, allowing paraplegic female wheelchair users to wear adapted trousers.
Bandages are common in many health-related treatments, including management of edema of the lower limb where they may remain in place for several days. The behavior of 2 bandage fabrics was investigated after exposure for up to 5 days to a multiaxial extension laboratory setup on a tensile tester in compression mode. The fabrics were extended 20% and remained under that machine setting. Stress-relaxation over time was determined by analyzing the rate of change over 24 hours and over 5 days. Most change, a rapid drop in force, occurred during the first 15 minutes; thereafter, for the next 12-hour period, a slower rate of decrease was observed. Both fabrics continued to relax gradually during the next 12 hours and continued to do so for up to 5 days. Little further change was evident during the last 12 hours or so. This phenomenon suggests that rewrapping may be appropriate (albeit not practical) after 12 hours of compression therapy to optimize the compression given to the lower leg. Relaxation behavior of these 2 fabrics can be explained using the generalized Maxwell-Wiechert model.