Development of a dynamic wheelchair lateral support

Approximately 65 million people worldwide require the use of a wheelchair, making it one of the most common assistive mobility devices. Different wheelchair styles and accessories are utilized to better customize a wheelchair for a patient’s specific needs. One such accessory is the lateral support, which is beneficial for patients who need additional postural support in maintaining their balance and stability while seated in a wheelchair. This includes paraplegic or quadriplegic patients, patients who underwent a traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury, and patients with scoliosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis (MS), muscular dystrophy, or cerebral palsy. Despite the various types and styles of lateral supports available on the market, there is no device that will securely hold the patient, while allowing them the ability to bend and move laterally. Through this project, mechanisms to develop an adjustable, affordable, and dynamic lateral support are explored. The selected mechanism addresses the restrictive nature of conventional lateral supports, by increasing the user’s range of motion by over 30 degrees of lateral bending on either side, and restoring over 85% of the average person’s range of motion in the frontal plane. The proposed lateral support will thereby provide patients with a sense of independence and improve quality of life. This design will also be beneficial for patients at high risk of pressure sore development, by providing a light-weight device to assist in weight shifting. Patients prone to self-injurious behaviors can also benefit, as a dynamic support could soften the impact of resulting blows to the wheelchair, reducing injury severity by an estimated 65%. Furthermore, a SolidWorks motion study simulation has been developed as part of this project, and was utilized to test various parameters for the development of a dynamic lateral support. This simulation can be used in future work to efficiently test various forces and additional design parameters to assist in the efforts of designing a dynamic lateral support.M.S.Includes bibliographical reference