Mechanical Design of an Instrumented Cane for Gait Prediction by Physical Therapists
Boyles, Robert William
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2015-11-11
Abstract
Many individuals at some point in their lives will utilize an assisted walking device to help them move around. Physical therapists use their experience to assess a person's likelihood of experiencing a fall, as well as recommend types of these assisted devices that can help decrease this probability. This thesis presents the design of an instrumented offset-style walking cane to provide a quantitative measurement of an individual's walking ability to go along with other observation-based assessments. Through several sensors in the handle and base of the cane, force and inertial data can be captured to determine how an individual is gripping and bearing their weight on the device as they walk around. The goal of this work is to improve upon an earlier design by moving from a standard to an offset-style cane, as well as make the device more appealing for use in the lives of individuals outside of a clinical setting. This is accomplished by designing a subsystem that can help detect and alert users of potential obstacles in their current walking path, thus helping to decrease the likelihood of experiencing a fall.