Wheelchair Skills Test

The Wheelchair Skills Test (WST) is a standardized, objective assessment of how well a wheelchair user can perform a graded set of individual wheelchair skills, from basic maneuvers like rolling forward and turning to advanced ones like descending curbs and performing a stationary wheelie. Developed by R. Lee Kirby and colleagues at Dalhousie University and validated through a 2002 pilot and a 2004 measurement-properties study of version 2.4, the WST scores each skill for whether the user can perform it and how safely, then summarizes performance as a percentage of skills passed. It turns the diffuse notion of wheelchair mobility into a reliable, comparable, and trainable outcome.