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Wheelchair Attachment for Leg-Strengthening Therapy

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Project Overview

Often, patients that are in a wheelchair are required to partake in physical therapy for recovery. This may consist of multiple sessions every week, which may not be optimal for a fast recovery, or may not be enough to help patients recover out of the wheelchair.

A device that patients would be able to use outside of the physical therapy sessions that could help in strengthening their standing leg muscles is a device that is needed by many. There are wheelchairs available now that provide the user with the ability to exercise, however they are expensive and make it difficult for multiple patients to use, as they have to switch wheelchairs to utilize them.

The idea for this project is to create a device that would allow patients to work the standing leg muscles from the wheelchair, but in the form of a device that is simply attached to the wheelchair. The design should allow for the device to easily move from one wheelchair to another, so that more than one patient can use it. This would allow patients to have extra opportunities to work on their therapy outside of therapy sessions.

The device should also be able to work with different leg lengths, count the number of leg presses a patient does, and lock when it reaches a certain amount of presses to avoid overuse of muscles.

Team Picture

Isabel Erickson, Kennedy Pawell, Marissa Harkness, Kirsten Brokish, Andi Sullivan
Isabel Erickson, Kennedy Pawell, Marissa Harkness, Kirsten Brokish, Andi Sullivan

Contact Information

Team Members

  • Isabel Erickson - Team Leader
  • Kennedy Pawell - Communicator
  • Andrea Sullivan - BSAC
  • Kirsten Brokish - BWIG
  • Marissa Harkness - BPAG

Advisor and Client

  • Dr. Darilis Suarez-Gonzalez - Advisor
  • Dr. Dan Uhlrich - Client
  • Lisa Steinkamp - Alternate Contact

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