Drive assembly for manually powered wheelchair and methods of using the same

A drive assembly for driving a manually powered wheelchair, comprising:

• a plurality of wheel troughs extending from a front end towards a rear end of the drive assembly, each wheel trough (i) adjustably sizeable to receive therein a rear push wheel of a wheelchair and (ii) comprising a pin oriented substantially perpendicular to a longitudinal axis of the wheel trough;
• two drive wheels, positioned towards the front end of the drive assembly, for imparting motion to the drive assembly and thereby driving the wheelchair when the rear push wheels of the wheelchair are positioned within the wheel troughs;
• and
• a single caster-wheel assembly, positioned towards the rear end of the drive assembly.

A method for driving a manually powered wheelchair having two rear push wheels, the method comprising the steps of:

• (i) positioning each rear push wheel of the wheelchair within a corresponding, adjustably sizeable wheel trough of a drive assembly by reversing each rear push wheel of the wheelchair over a ramp of its corresponding wheel trough, each wheel trough extending from a front end towards a rear end of the drive assembly and the ramp of each wheel trough being positioned at the front end of the drive assembly, the drive assembly further comprising:
• two drive wheels, positioned towards the front end of the drive assembly;
• and
• a single caster-wheel assembly, positioned towards the rear end of the drive assembly;
• and
• (ii) actuating the two drive wheels to impart motion to the drive assembly and to thereby drive the wheelchair.