Breaking the "Inescapable" Cycle of Pain: Supporting Wheelchair Users' Upper Extremity Health Awareness and Management with Tracking Technologies

Upper extremity (UE) health issues are a common concern among wheelchair users and have a large impact on their independence, social participation, and quality of life. However, despite the welldocumented prevalence and negative impacts, these issues remain unresolved. Existing solutions (e.g. surgical repair, conservative treatments) often fail to promote sustained UE health improvement in wheelchair users' day-to-day lives. Recent HCI research has shown the effectiveness of health tracking technologies in supporting patients' self-care for different health conditions (e.g. chronic diseases, mental health). In this work, we explore how health tracking technologies could support wheelchair users' UE health self-care. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 wheelchair users and 5 therapists to understand their practices and challenges in UE health management, as well as the potential benefits of integrating health tracking technologies into self-care routines. We discuss design implications for UE health tracking technologies and outline opportunities for future investigation.

• Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI.