Good morning profs and fellow classmates, today I will be presenting on my fyp project, Mobility for the aged.
My supervisor is Peer and I am Douglas.

And Lets recap on the design brief:
To create a series of mobility aid product for the elderly that empower them by enhancing their physical ability so they can continue to live actively.

Now, I would like to draw your attention to my target audience.

The Target Audiences that I am working on are group b and group c. The reason behind is to prevent them from falling into group d which is wheelchair bounded.

Question: Why do they need a walking cane?

They could have multiple issues or conditions that they are experiencing.
But this one disease has an increasing rate in recent years and it’s going to double up in 2030.

Its Osteoarthritis, in short, it’s OA.
A health Knee Joint has a well covered cartilage around it.
But an OA knee has bone exposure.

Do take note that OA affects other parts of the body.

And so What is the main causes osteoarthritis?
Over the years, the effect of wear and tear of the joints.
Injury that involves your joints.

And being overweight, you get affected. More weight more stress and pressure on the knee.

And this is the effect of OA.
As the bone is exposed, the rubbing cause pain, swelling and loss of motion of the joints.

Pain cause increased heart rate, increased stress hormone then more disease strikes in.

After having a brief understanding of what is OA, this is an activities chart to understand the elderly point of view.

I want to draw your attention to the relationship between osteoarthritis and muscle weakness as they are closely linked together and we have to be very clear on the reason behind this degenerative process.

I would now go through the process of an elderly suffering from OA.

We first start off with a swelling knee.
Standing up.
Back aching pain.
Ok pain. Enough. I’m going to take a rest. And this goes on and on and to the extent, they hardly move around.
This cause muscles weakness because you don’t use it, you lose it.

Now I will bring your attention to a day in the future with an OA elderly
With all the problems that I have stated earlier, here’s my design concept.

Hot and Cold therapy is used to improve the swelling and stiffness of the affected knee.

What is so special?

Plug in and let the water flow.
1. The temperature will change gradually instead of giving you a sudden temperature change. Therefore giving the elderly a smoother transition in responding to the temperature change.

2. Preserving water
The water will return to the water containment and it can be reused for the next treatment.

Elevated seat with the help of using an airbag.
In the normal airbag, the direct of elevated is directed upwards.

However, the design airbag is tilted forward to a degree of 60. This is to allow the user to activate his weaker thigh muscles to have a better standing and stability.

This slide is to prove that the airbag experiment works.
A standing Docking system is required for three main purpose.
1. A reference point where the user will stand on top of the foot print and align his body to the exoskeleton.

2. The docking system will be activated and the wings will push the strapes to the user. This prompts the user on where is the important point to be secure.

3. Charging port when the exoskeleton is returned to the docking system.
With this exoskeleton, it powered both legs to move.
Why is this required? As the weaker thigh muscles have a lack of strength in it, this reduces the confidence and sense of security for the user to move forward. With an assumption of only having 30% of leg strength, the device provides 70% additional strength to push the user leg forward to make the steps happened.

The power of the motion will only be generated when the user moves his leg forwards. It moves with the will of the user and not against it.

The lumbar support helps to improve the back posture. This is the mounting process and the potential problem here is how can we prevent the user from bending down to adjust the strape.
The simplest solution to this is to make the user sit down to mount the strape.

A quick overview of this system control over the four products. 

Lets make this design better, its our future afterall. Thank you!

A possible way of bringing all the components into one chair.
Comments: There is no flexibility and its like an osim chair.

 

 

Professors Feedback:

1. Garment concept
Wear it underneath the shirt or dress.
Perhaps we can consider using swimsuit and build in the technology.

Follow up action:
We will collate the response of how people view this product and give a better understanding of user acceptance
1. Exposed exoskeleton
2. Exoskeleton garment.

2. Do you still require a Walking Stick?

This exoskeleton provides strength instead of stability and if the user is in Group B, we are trying to improve his condition to bring him back to Group A, walking without walking stick.

3. Is this for an outdoor use or indoor use?

Its built to bring the user from Point A to Point B.
It can be both.

4. Comment from the professors and classmates: 
If that is the case, why not make it a physiotherapy device?

Answer:
I feel that we shouldn’t limit our point of view in just making it into a physiotherapy device. In this one year, I feel that my role is to explore all the possibilities that this device has and put it out there for other researchers and developers to explore more in whichever categories they are interested in and develop it further. I’m working towards a design strategy and vision for this project.

If this device can do both, being a physiotherapy and a personal mobility device, why not? What we have to deal with is the programming setting and understanding the human natural walking movement.