Research Blog - Assistive Technology Project
- yilinzou
- Dec 20, 2020
- 2 min read
Our partner and client present with unique challenges in her everyday life inside her own home. She is elderly, experiences knee and back pain every day, and suffers from falls while accessing her own furniture. She claims that multiple solutions like canes, grab bars, walkers, etc. have been recommended to her by the physical and occupational therapists in the past. However, she likes her independence way too much to begin relying on such external devices to access her home. And we agree, one can convince her to use assistive mobility devices but compliance is questionable given her personal preferences.
Yet, we feel empathetic about her pain and fall experiences in her home and want to build a partnership with her to find solutions that she would prefer and value. Targeting fall prevention by raising the height of her furniture and providing an external supportive device for standing up and sitting is all the partners’ priority for improving our partner’s quality of life. This project aims to generate recommendations for the external environment in the client’s house.
Due to aging, falls and fall-related injuries are an indicator of frailty that constitutes a major risk of health and well-being to older adults (Pynoos et al., 2012). As our partner experiences significant back and knee pain, we realized that understanding the biomechanics of sit-to-stand is important to design our product ergonomically. The knee flexors, extensors, and trunk movement muscles (quadriceps, hamstrings, and lumbar paraspinal) are identified as the major involved muscles in the sit-to-stand action in the elderly (Dehail et al., 2007). Muscle-strengthening could be one potential solution. However, given our partner’s frail elderly being, safe external environmental modifications to reduce falls and strain on her joints should be looked into more closely.
As reported in a cross-sectional study by Lindemann et al., (2014), trunk flexion and extension during sit-to-stand motion can be reduced by increasing the height of the surface. Additionally, the use of hands to push-off also gave a similar reduction in trunk movements. In accordance with this study, we are looking to raise the furniture height such that our partner’s hips and thighs are slightly more extended than the horizontal position.
An experimental study conducted by Valipoor et al., (2018) concluded that higher (28 cm) and farther (67 cm) armrests promote a safer stand-sit-stand transition with improved upper body posture. Our team aims to design and produce a stander that incorporates these evidenced findings for improved and safer functioning for our partner.
Please see more details by clicking on the “Research Details” below.
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