Wearable Joint Brace with Dynamic Feedback Support
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing orthopedic devices, such as rigid frame braces, fail to effectively alert users to potentially injurious joint conditions and often reduce athletic performance or cause additional injuries due to their bulkiness and constant rigidity, lacking the ability to provide support only when necessary.
Innovation Solution
A wearable device with a feedback mechanism that remains inactive during normal joint motion within predefined limits, activating sensors and response elements like inflatable air cells, shape memory materials, or electrical stimulation when joint motion approaches extreme limits to alert the user and prevent injury, utilizing sensors and a processor to detect relative rotations and varus/valgus movements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If rigid frame braces are used to stabilize the knee joint, then joint stability is improved, but device weight and bulk increase
Solution Approach 1:
The brace transitions from a static rigid structure to a dynamic system that can adapt its stiffness. The compliant brace with inflatable air cells allows the joint to move freely during normal activities, then instantly provides rigid support when excessive motion is detected, eliminating the need for constant rigidity and reducing overall weight.
Solution Approach 2:
The brace changes its mechanical parameters (stiffness, rigidity) based on detected joint conditions. During normal motion, the brace remains compliant and lightweight. When sensors detect excessive rotation or varus/valgus movement, the system inflates air cells to dramatically increase stiffness, providing protection only when needed.
2Reliability
If rigid frame braces provide constant support, then joint protection is improved, but athletic performance decreases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of continuous rigid support, the brace provides periodic, intermittent support only when excessive joint motion is detected. The compliant brace allows full range of motion during normal activities, then activates rigid support in periodic bursts when safety thresholds are exceeded, maintaining athletic performance while providing protection.
Solution Approach 2:
The brace incorporates sensors that continuously monitor joint motion and provide feedback to a control system. This feedback loop enables the brace to distinguish between normal athletic movement and potentially injurious motion, activating support only when necessary and maintaining performance during normal activities.
3Stability of the object's composition
If rigid frame braces are worn during contact sports, then joint stability is improved, but risk of injury to others increases
Solution Approach 1:
The dynamic brace remains compliant and flexible during contact sports, allowing the wearer to move naturally without the bulky rigid frame that causes injury to others. Only when excessive motion is detected does the brace temporarily activate support, minimizing harm to others while maintaining joint protection.
4Strength
If rigid frame braces are used, then joint support is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the rigid support function from a constant structural frame and relocates it to a conditional response system. The compliant brace eliminates the complex rigid frame structure, replacing it with a simpler system of sensors, inflatables, and compliant materials that provide support only when needed.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The device provides necessary support only when required, preventing injuries by alerting users to unsafe joint orientations and training them in proper biomechanics, while being lightweight and reducing the drawbacks of rigid braces.
Implementation Method 1
The feedback or response mechanism may include an inflatable air cell that remains in an uninflated configuration when a detected condition is within predefined limits and achieves an inflated configuration when the detected condition is outside of the predefined limits
Implementation Method 2
feedback or response elements like inflatable air cells, shape memory materials, or electrical stimulation
Implementation Method 3
at least one sensor member is arranged on or within the compliant article to detect relative rotation between a tibia and a femur
Implementation Method 4
feedback or response elements like inflatable air cells, shape memory materials, or electrical stimulation
Data Source
AI summary
A wearable device having feedback characteristics including a compliant article arranged to extend over an anatomical portion of a wearer and for providing a user with information regarding range of motion parameters of a joint and/or to condition users to maintain proper joint orientations. Sensors provided with the wearable device detect the orientation of the joint and send signals to a processor for analysis. When the processor determines that the joint is outside of predefined range of motion parameters or in an unsafe or potentially injurious configuration, a feedback or response mechanism is activated to alert the user to such a condition or to provide substantially rigid structural support to the joint. The sensors, processor, and feedback mechanisms can be provided in a monitoring and control package along a side of the compliant article.