Gait Training Apparatus with Synchronized Actuators
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional rehabilitation apparatuses for individuals with impaired mobility, such as those with spinal injuries or stroke victims, do not adequately simulate natural leg movement during walking, leading to poor gait development.
Innovation Solution
An exercise and gait-training apparatus with a framework, harness, and orthosis system, utilizing actuators and control means to mimic natural walking, running, or sporting activities, allowing synchronized movement of the legs and providing adjustable support and feedback for improved mobility and muscle exercise.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If conventional rehabilitation apparatus is used to exercise muscles and aid walking, then muscle strength is improved, but gait pattern becomes poor due to lack of natural movement pathway simulation
Solution Approach 1:
The apparatus pre-programmes and guides the user's legs through predetermined pathways that simulate natural walking movements before the user can perform independent walking. The control means synchronizes actuator operation to move the user's legs along these pre-established natural gait patterns, ensuring proper form is learned first.
Solution Approach 2:
The apparatus introduces an intermediary mechanical system (actuators, harness, orthosis) between the user and the ground. This intermediary system guides and constrains leg movement along natural pathways, mediating the transition from impaired movement to proper gait patterns during rehabilitation.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the framework is made mobile with wheels to allow movement, then versatility is improved, but control precision becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The control means incorporates feedback mechanisms to monitor and adjust the position and movement of the mobile framework. This feedback system allows the control means to synchronize actuator operation with the framework's movement, maintaining precise control over the user's leg pathways even as the apparatus moves across the floor.
Solution Approach 2:
The control means is designed to perform multiple functions: it controls both the mobile framework's movement and the actuators' operation simultaneously. This multi-functional control system manages the complexity of coordinating framework mobility with precise leg pathway guidance.
Data Source
AI summary
An exercise and gait-training apparatus has a framework adapted for location above a surface, a harness adapted to support a person relative to the framework, an orthosis adapted for attachment to a lower leg or foot of one leg of the person, a first pair of actuators that are angled with respect to one another and pivotally connected to the framework and connected on a common pivot axis to the harness, a second pair of actuators that are angled with respect to one another and pivotally connected to the framework and connected on a common pivot axis to the orthosis, and a controller that is adapted to control and to synchronize operation of the actuators such that the leg is moved in an arcing pathway simulating a natural movement of the leg.