Stair climbing

About: Stair climbing is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1610 publications have been published within this topic receiving 30504 citations.

Evaluation of a novel stair-climbing transportation aid for emergency medical services.

Abstract: Acute and planned transportations of patients are major tasks for emergency medical services (EMS) and often result in substantial physical strains with a major impact on the workers' health, because current transportation aids cannot provide sufficient support, especially on stairs. A new stair-climbing and self-balancing approach (SEBARES) has been developed and its usability is evaluated in the context of this paper. Twelve participants operated a prototype in a transportation scenario and user forces, user joint angles and the perceived usability were evaluated. Results show that user forces were within long-term acceptable ergonomic limits for over 90% of the transportation time and a mainly healthy upright posture of the back could be maintained. This resulted in a healthy working posture for 85% of the time, according to the OWAS method, and a good perceived usability. A comparison to the most ergonomic aid according to literature, a caterpillar stair chair, reveals that similar upright postures are assumed, while the operation of SEBARES required only 47% of the forces to operate the caterpillar stair chair. A comparison to a previous field study indicates a reduction of strenuous working postures by a factor of three, which further confirms the ergonomic advantages of this concept.

The effectiveness of contextual cues in encouraging stair use

Abstract: Stair climbing is an ideal activity to promote in worksites due to its availability and associated health benefits. To date findings are equivocal regarding stair climbing intervention success in this setting, thus more research is needed. Chapter two of this thesis confirmed that a calorific expenditure message can increase stair climbing in a train station. Based on this finding, chapter three implemented a point-of-choice intervention using a longer calorific expenditure message in four buildings and successfully increased stair climbing. The inability to translate intervention success on public access staircases to the worksite setting is likely to be due the random availability of the lift. Consequently, chapter four examined the effect of lift availability on stair use, concluding that reduced lift availability increases stair use. Lift availability can rarely be modified however, so chapter five assessed whether a point-of-choice intervention using an aspirational climb Mt. Everest message can increase stair climbing. Whilst no increase in stair climbing was recorded during this intervention, the same calorific expenditure message as used in chapter three increased stair climbing in the same building. Collectively, these findings demonstrate the effectiveness of point-of-choice prompts using calorific expenditure messages in increasing stair climbing in the worksite setting.

Biomechanical Analysis of Human Stair Climbing (Ascending and Descending)

Abstract: Because stair climbing is a common activity of daily living, the ability to do it efficiently is important to an individual's quality of life. More demanding than level walking, stair ambulation is performed with ease by healthy individuals; however, it is more difficult to perform for those with decrements in motor function, balance problems, or reduced lower-limb function. The difficulty with stair climbing is attributable to increased muscular demands, which are reflected in larger forces, angles, powers, moments, and ranges of motion, and these increased demands occur consistently at the knee joint. Kinematic system is used in stair climbing to record the position and orientation of the body segments, the angles of the joints and the corresponding linear and angular velocities and acceleration. The purpose of the study is to show an ideal kinematics appearance of human gait cycle for stair climbing in order to get measurement values that can be depended on in the hospitals of rehabilitatio n, the centers of physical therapy and the clinical of medical sports as a reference data for kinematic joint parameter. In this study, 5 subjects were selected from the society, then a video recording was made for them by using a single digital video camera recorder fitted on a stand of three legs in a sagittal plane while subjects climbing a stair one by one for different stair heights. Motion analysis was used to study the knee and hip joint kinematics. As a result, it was observed that the range of motion at the hip joint is between (10°-70°) at ascending and the range is between (20°-50°) at descending. The range of motion at the knee joint is between (20°-90°) at ascending and the range is between (10°-100°) at descending. The range of motion at the ankle joint is between (-25°-20°) at ascending and the range is between (-25°-15°) at descending. Also it was found that the angular velocity at the hip joint is between (-10-10) deg/s for ascending and (-15-25) deg/s for descending. The angular velocity at the knee joint is between (-40-30) deg/s for ascending and (-30-50) deg/s for descending. The angular velocity at the ankle joint is between (-30-20) deg/s for ascending and (-15-15) deg/s for descending. In this study, biomechanical characteristics of lower limb joint upon various stair height were presented and these data can be applied to biomedical research field that include wearable walking assistant robot.