Development and Evaluation of a Rehabilitation Wheelchair with Multiposture Transformation and Smart Control

Stroke and other neurological disorders have an effect on mobility which has a significant impact on independence and quality of life. The core rehabilitation requirements for patients with lower limb motor dysfunction are gait training, restand, and mobility. In this work, we introduce a newly deve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inComplexity (New York, N.Y.) Vol. 2021; no. 1
Main Authors Cao, Wujing, Yu, Hongliu, Wu, Xinyu, Li, Sujiao, Meng, Qiaoling, Chen, Chunjie
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hoboken Hindawi 2021
Hindawi Limited
Wiley
Subjects
Ankle
Control systems
Gait
Gravity
Neurological diseases
Patients
Performance evaluation
Posture
Pressure ulcers
Rehabilitation
Sensors
Stroke
Training
Transformations
Voice control
Voice recognition
Walking
Wheelchairs
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Summary:Stroke and other neurological disorders have an effect on mobility which has a significant impact on independence and quality of life. The core rehabilitation requirements for patients with lower limb motor dysfunction are gait training, restand, and mobility. In this work, we introduce a newly developed multifunctional wheelchair that we call “ReChair” and evaluated its performance preliminarily. ReChair seamlessly integrates the mobility, gait training, and multiposture transformation. ReChair driving and multiposture transformation are done using the voice, button, and mobile terminal control. This work describes the functional requirements, mechanical structure, and control system and the overall evaluation of ReChair including the kinematic simulation of the multiposture transformation and passive lower limb rehabilitation training to quantitatively verify the motion capability of ReChair, the voice control system evaluation that shows how the voice recognition system is suitable for home environment, the sensorless speed detection test results that indicate how the wheel speeds measured by sensorless method are appropriate for travelling control, and the passive and balance training test results that show how the lower limb rehabilitation training in daily life by ReChair is convenient. Finally, the experimental results show that ReChair meets the patients’ requirements and has practical significance. It is cost-effective, easy to use, and supports multiple control modes to adapt to different rehabilitation phases.
ISSN:1076-2787
1099-0526
DOI:10.1155/2021/6628802