Revised Standard from Last Update.

NATIONAL FOREWORD

This Indian Standard which is identical with ISO 7176-26 : 2007 ‘Wheelchairs — Part 26 : Vocabulary’ issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was adopted by the Bureau of Indian Standards on the recommendation of the Artificial Limbs, Rehabilitation Appliances and Equipment for the Person with Disability Sectional Committee and approval of the Medical Equipment and Hospital Planning Division Council.

The provision and selection of wheelchairs and associated seating products relies on clear communication of information relating to these devices. Over time, many terms and definitions have evolved. Unfortunately, this process has resulted in a lack of clear meaning for some terms and duplication of other terms (sometimes with conflicting messages).

For example, the terms tilt and recline are sometimes used interchangeably, but usually have quite distinct meanings. If used inappropriately, an entirely inappropriate wheelchair may be specified or purchased.

The purpose of this part of the standard is to provide a collection of terms and their definitions to form the basis of clear communication across the field of wheelchair and associated seating and to eliminate confusion from duplication or inappropriate use of terms.

The vocabulary is drawn from surveys of the literature and language used by experts in this field. It excludes, however, terms which are adequately defined in the everyday language of English, medicine and technology.

This standard recognizes that there are a number of terms in use which, because of duplication or in adequacies of meaning, should be replaced by terms from this vocabulary. To help people move towards a common vocabulary, these deprecated terms are included along with a reference to the preferred term.

The development and application of wheelchair standards is particularly dependent upon clear and consistent terms and definitions. Hence, a major proportion of this part of ISO 7176 includes terms and definitions used in more than one of the ISO standards specifically related to ISO Wheelchair Standards. These include the ISO 7176, ISO 10542, and ISO 16840 series, and ISO 7193. Future standards in these series will cite this document for definition of terms wherever possible, thus facilitating the consistent use of a common vocabulary.

This part of standard is intended purely as a means of specifying terms and definitions. It does not attempt to classify wheelchairs and associated seating into any classification of device groupings as this is the purpose of ISO 9999. Annex A provides a standard set of descriptors for characterizing wheelchairs.

On publication, this standard will supersede IS 10976 : 1993 ‘Wheelchairs — Nomenclature, terms and definitions (first revision)’

The text of ISO Standard has been approved as suitable for publication as an Indian Standard without deviations. Certain conventions are however not identical to those used in the Indian Standards. Attention is particularly drawn to the following:

a) Wherever the words ‘International Standard’ appear referring to this standard, they should be read as ‘Indian Standard’.

b) Comma (,) has been used as a decimal marker while in Indian Standards, the current practice is to use a point (.) as the decimal marker.