Development of a wheeled mobility device to facilitate chair transfers

Abstract

This paper proposes a wheeled mobility device specifically designed to facilitate chair transfers. This design introduces a novel seating function that can be used as a conventional wheelchair. It also includes an innovatively designed seat to enhance patient comfort during transfer and transport. In addition to this, the design integrates a specialized Stand Assistive Device to assist patients in standing and sitting. It includes several user-friendly features, a parallelogram mechanism that ensures that the user stays upright during the process and a lower limb locking mechanism to ensure stability. It also incorporates low physical strain to the caregiver providing a safe and feasible operation. An experiment was conducted to observe the path of the shoulder joint during assisted standing. The results obtained by this was integrated into the kinematic analysis of the Stand Assist Device. A kinetic analysis of the user and the Stand Assist device is presented in the paper. A functional prototype, incorporating several safety features, was fabricated and tested by four healthy users with varying anthropometric data.