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The problem and final design challenge

The problem

Our participant does daily stretching exercises of the muscles in his legs. He would stand up for a total of 1 hour per day to regain a bit of flexibility. However, during these daily exercises he encounters a few obstacles.
To start, he is not able to stretch his legs in horse and bike position. Horse position meaning, having his legs spread sideways. And bike position meaning, one leg goes forward and one leg goes backward. This is shown in the figure below, where the circles represent a top view of the legs. In the rest of the report we will refer to these positions as well.

Screenshot 2022-04-08 084024.jpg

Furthermore, he can’t do too complicated tasks while stretching his legs, like responding to emails, considering that he needs to focus on his legs to prevent them from losing stability.
His knees also tend to scissor while sitting and standing up. For now, our participant keeps a towel between his knees whenever he sits to maintain distance between the knees.
Lastly, the participant’s legs would randomly stretch whenever he sits in his wheelchair.

Design challenge

The main reason why we changed our design challenge is because we first focused on a support that would help our participant while standing up. This however would require a tool that would provide him a lot of stability.
However, the most important thing for our participant is for him to be able to stretch his legs. Furthermore, we also focused on solutions that would fix all the problems of our participant. However, with the limited time, we eventually decided to mainly focus on a tool that would help him support his weight while doing stretching exercises and that would support the horse position. Therefore, we simplified the design challenge.

Version 2.0

To create a tool that supports standing up in such a way that the upper leg/hip muscles get extended. In the hope that spasticity reduces with longer muscles. The tool should give support during split positions, sideways and forwards and backwards (like sitting on a horse or bike). The tool should help him regain a bit of flexibility in the legs and as result also rest and control.

Final design challenge

To create a tool that supports the participant’s weight while stretching the muscles in his legs at home. The support should give the participant more stability and help positioning the participant in horse position (spread legs). Furthermore, the support should help the participant regain a bit of flexibility and should be usable without help from others.

List of requirements

  • The product should be movable around the house by the user him/herself

  • The product should be able to put on and off by the user him/herself

  • The product should allow the user to move the joints in horse and bike position whilst standing 

  • The product should support the user while stretching his legs

  • The product should make sure the user doesn’t fall (stability)

  • The product should be able to maintain the distance between the knees 

  • The product should be able to stretch the muscles 

  • The product should be able to adapt when the muscles become longer

  • The product should be made from sustainable/reusable materials

  • The product should not harm the user while using the product

  • The product should fit on the user

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