Date of Award
5-8-2023
Degree Type
Capstone Project
First Advisor
Bahram Nassersharif
Abstract
One of the most important and most useful tools used in rehabilitation for patients with mobility issues is the classic walker. However, after thorough and intense research, this walker has great potential to possess a higher risk in patients. After users would walk with the traditional walking aid, users would begin to develop a permanent hunch position that could be detrimental to the users health. Additionally, the traditional walker came with pain points in the wrists as users would put all of their weight on their wrist causing soreness and pain in their arms. Moreover, the traditional walker was not multi-surface friendly making it difficult for users to adapt to changing floor surfaces as they walked in public. Despite these problems, there were additional problems developed with the traditional walker aesthetically, and mobility of the walker were all found to be additional problems.
It is this team's goal to develop a newly designed walker to assist users and to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The top expectation for our new design is to force the user comfortably to remain in an upright position and to eliminate all pain points associated with the traditional walker. Additionally, it is our team’s goal to make the walking aid a healthy and easy- to-use device to eliminate all these devastating health concerns.
This design will be evaluated and guided with the help of medical professionals. We as a team were fortunate enough to work hand in hand with a Physical therapist and the South Kingston Rehabilitation and Assisted Living home. By doing this, we are able to get professional advice and feedback from healthcare professionals.
The contents of this report will include our completed design and how that design was developed. Furthermore, this report will go through an in-depth analysis of our prototype and how it was compared to other design concepts. Numerous Pugh and QFD analyses were conducted and all located in this report.
Recommended Citation
DaSilva, Adam; Jefferds, Sami; Coley, Mark; and Winters, Keevan, "The Walker Revised: A Healthier and Improved Walker" (2023). Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects. Paper 120.
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/mechanical-engineering-capstones/120
Comments
Team Name: Hunch No More! (Team 15)
Sponsor: Christopher Ratcliffe
Document Reference: URI-MCE-402-015-2023