ABSTRACT

Modified battery-powered ride-on toy cars represent novel rehabilitation tools for children with disabilities. However, safety concerns exist with the use of these battery-power toys and pose a barrier for the growth of adaptive ride-on toy programs due to the lack of evidence demonstrating that modifications made to these cars are safe. Within this context, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether modifications to ride-on toys are sufficient to prevent common injuries and determine how these modifications influence injury metrics. Specifically, we evaluated the effects of common modifications such as various seatbelt configurations and determined how increased seat back height effects neck forces. Results indicated that occupant displacement can be reduced using a lap belt, and further reductions in displacement are achieved with a 5-point harness. Although some injury metrics increased with restraints, none of the collected injury metrics even came close to approaching known tolerance thresholds, and most were well within the range that is experienced by a child in daily life. As the greatest concerns for these ride-on toys are related to displacement, findings from this study support the use of a 5-point harness system to minimize displacement-related injuries with little-to-no added risk.

摘要

改装的电池供电的乘坐玩具车代表了残疾儿童的新型康复工具。然而，使用这些电池动力玩具存在安全问题，并且由于缺乏证据表明对这些汽车进行的修改是安全的，因此对自适应乘骑玩具项目的发展构成了障碍。在此背景下，本研究的目的是调查对骑乘玩具的修改是否足以防止常见伤害，并确定这些修改如何影响伤害指标。具体来说，我们评估了常见修改的影响，例如各种安全带配置，并确定增加的座椅靠背高度如何影响颈部力。结果表明，使用安全腰带可以减少乘员位移，使用 5 点式安全带可进一步减少位移。尽管一些伤害指标随着约束的增加而增加，但收集到的伤害指标都没有接近已知的耐受阈值，而且大多数都在孩子日常生活中所经历的范围内。由于这些骑乘玩具最大的担忧与位移有关，因此本研究的结果支持使用 5 点式安全带系统来最大限度地减少与位移相关的伤害，并且几乎不会增加风险。