Modular Chair Support Cushion With Adjustable Patient Positioning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional support cushions in the healthcare sector often fail to provide optimum support for patients due to fixed dimensions and stiffness, which cannot be adequately adjusted to individual patient needs or seating furniture configurations.
Innovation Solution
A modular support cushion system with interchangeable and adjustable components, including fillings with varying thickness, stiffness, and reinforcements, which can be customized for specific patient requirements by using zips, hook and loop fasteners, and inflatable parts, allowing for optimal support and positioning adjustments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional support cushions with fixed dimensions and stiffness are used, then manufacturing and simplicity are maintained, but adaptability to individual patient needs and seating furniture configurations is poor
Solution Approach 1:
The support cushion is divided into multiple independent filling parts (first filling part, second filling part, third filling part, fourth filling part) that can be separately inserted, removed, and configured. Each filling part can be independently adjusted to customize the cushion's support characteristics for different patient needs and seating configurations.
Solution Approach 2:
The cushion transitions from a fixed, static structure to a dynamic, adjustable system where filling parts can be inserted or removed through openings in the cover. This allows the cushion's properties to be changed over time to adapt to different patients and seating furniture, resolving the contradiction between fixed simplicity and adaptive versatility.
2Adaptability or versatility
If a single fixed support cushion is used, then device simplicity is maintained, but the ability to provide optimal support for different patients and situations is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The cushion is manufactured as a base structure with openings, designed to receive separately produced filling parts. This segmentation allows the cover to be manufactured once as a universal base, while filling parts can be produced in various configurations and combinations to meet different customer needs.
Solution Approach 2:
The cover is designed as a universal component with multiple openings that can accommodate different combinations of filling parts. This universal base design simplifies manufacturing while enabling multiple configurations through the interchangeable filling parts, allowing one cushion shell to serve multiple functions.
3Adaptability or versatility
If interchangeable filling parts are implemented, then adaptability and customizability are improved, but device complexity and number of components increase
Solution Approach 1:
The filling is segmented into distinct, independently insertable parts that can be combined in various ways. Each part is a separate component that can be manufactured and configured independently, then assembled into the cushion through openings in the cover, enabling flexibility without requiring a completely different cushion for each configuration.
Solution Approach 2:
The filling parts are designed to be nested within the cover structure, with each filling part fitting into a defined space within the cushion. This nesting approach allows multiple components to be organized within a single cushion shell, managing complexity by containing multiple functional elements within a unified outer structure.
Data Source
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AI summary
Support cushion for a chair or the like. Such support cushion is of cruciform shape and can be curved along four folding lines, thus producing a backrest part, a seat part, a leg part and two armrest parts adjoining the seat part. This can be used in combination with seating furniture, such as a chair, wheelchair or the like. It is proposed to vary the thickness of the cushions of the support cushion depending on the desired degree of support for the seated person. This may be achieved by using support cushions of different sizes on the basis of a certain size of the seating furniture. It is also possible to provide the support cushion with a cover into which filling material is introduced. The filling material may comprise different filling cushions and these may be fitted in a removable manner. The properties may be changed by replacing the entire contents of the cover, that is to say the filling, with a filling having different properties or by only changing parts of said filling. In addition, it is possible to provide the support cushion with hoisting straps, as a result of which said support cushion can be used in combination with a hoist lift or the like.