Transferring a patient is a basic assistance for individuals with moderate to maximum disability. The purpose of this study was to investigate the heart rate (HR) and workload of physical therapists during transferring a paraplegic patient from a newly designed wheelchair with adjustable height. Eleven healthy therapists (24±1 years of age, n=11) transferred the same thoracic cord (T12) injured male (weight 52 kg) from the wheelchair to bed at different height. The HR responses of the therapists were recorded by a telemetry system (WEP-4204J, Nihon Kohden Corp., Tokyo, Japan) to calculate the relative workload ((HRpeak-HRrest)/(HRmax-HRrest)*100%). One-way ANOVA and Bonferroni test were used to compare the differences among different transfer conditions. There was no significant difference among peak HR during low-even (115.3±4.6 beats/min), uneven (130.6 ± 5.3 beats/min), and high-even transfer (121.9 ± 5.5 beats/min). The relative workload (42.2±3.9%) during uneven transfer was significantly (p<0.05) higher than that (28.4±2.9%) during low-even transfer, and the difference was abolished during high-even transfer. The conclusion was that the workload of the therapists during uneven transfer was significantly increased and it could be reduced with the modification of the height of the wheelchair or bed.