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Stair climbing

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


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Dissertation
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: It is proposed that the introduction of parallel springs spanning the elbow joint will improve the crutching experience by helping patients attain a metabolic reduction compared to unassisted locomotion.
Abstract: Crutching provides a significant increase in mobility for those with limited walking ability. While level ground walking with crutches has been studied in many different forms, stair climbing is a more energetically taxing activity and the upper arm and shoulder strength required is not always available in weaker or severely injured patients. We posit that the introduction of parallel springs spanning the elbow joint will improve the crutching experience by helping patients attain a metabolic reduction compared to unassisted locomotion. Here, we present a foundation for achieving metabolic reduction with joint-spanning elastic elements. Our approach includes three parts. First, we present an augmented crutch design with an elbow spring that can be modified with different stiffnesses. Second, we put forth a clinical testing protocol in which we measure metabolic economy via the pulmonary gas exchange technique (Vo2avg). Simultaneously recording electromyographic (EMG) signals from the primary active muscles provides a neuromuscular interpretation of the crutching activity not captured by the black-box metabolic techniques. We complete the picture by modeling the energetics of the effective elbow muscle by incorporating empirical measurements of maximum angular velocity achieved under a range of isotonic conditions. The metabolic data exhibits trends consistent with our hypothesis of metabolic reduction; although, more subjects are needed to confirm these results. All subjects reported a feeling of augmentation at the optimal stiffness condition. An analysis of the EMG results show a clear transition in muscle usage patterns from a triceps only power stroke to a combined usage of both triceps and biceps. Where the triceps are maximally active during the non-augmented state, as stiffness increases the biceps become more active and the total activation level drops, suggesting the this shift is at least partially responsible for the observed metabolic reduction. While the model correctly predicts the relative shape of the observed curve, the optimal stiffness predictions are higher than their empirical equivalents. This is most likely due to the extra help the triceps muscles received from active stabilization and power muscles not considered in the model. With a more complete muscular picture one could begin to construct an accurate method of prediction and tuning of optimal stiffness. Thesis Supervisor: Hugh Herr Title: Associate Professor of Health Sciences and Technology Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Thesis Reader: Daniel Frey Title: Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor of Engineering Systems Acknowledgments There are many people who have supported me in the processes of producing this work. I would like to express my sincere thanks to: My thesis advisor, Hugh Herr, for giving me the freedom to find my own way and for his insightful guidance and direction. My fellow members of the Biomechatronics Group who have been my academic peers and companions these past two years. Most especially, I would like to thank Grant Elliot for many deep discussions on life, the universe, and everything and for his willingness to dedicate his brilliance to others so readily; Andy Marecki for his help with all things mechanical; Ernesto Martinez for his motivational talks, advice on metabolic analysis, and fabulous photography skills; Jared Markowitz for many unprecedented consultations on biomechanics and his hilarious jokes that kept me entertained at all hours; Michael Eilenberg for helping me work out the kinks in my experimental design and data processing steps and for his consistently cheerful demenor; Jing Wang for her companionship and laughter which always kept me in lab longer than I expected; Bruce Deffenbaugh for sharing his intuition and experience on approaching all types of problems; Sarah Hunter for her common sense, organization, and ability to make the impossible possible; and all the undergraduate students I have worked with who have done everything I have asked and consistently exceed my expectations in every way. My subjects who exhibited extreme patience for many hours while I collected their data. Bob Emerson and his staff who helped design and manufacture the crutch cuffs and provided much needed insight on how best to attach to the human form. Daniel Frey, for graciously offering to read my thesis. Daniel Montana and Xiao-Yu Fu for many late night conversations, last minute revisions, and words of encouragement. My friends both at MIT and elsewhere who have kept me sane and cheerful though thick and thin. Finally, I'd like to thank my parents and sister for putting up with my ridiculous ideas and somehow still encouraging me to pursue my goals. I am forever indebted to your love, unwavering support, generosity and commitment to my well-being.

1 citations

Patent
23 Feb 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, a multifunctional stair-climbing seat control system was proposed for meeting the demand of safely going up and down the stairs for those with inconvenient legs, and can meetthe demand of short-term travelling for the elders.
Abstract: The invention discloses a multifunctional stair-climbing seat control system, which is used for meeting the demand of safely going up and down the stairs for those with inconvenient legs, and can meetthe demand of short-term travelling for the elders. The multifunctional stair-climbing seat control system comprises an infrared obstacle-shielding module, which detects a first distance from the obstacle between a multifunctional stair-climbing seat and the stairs to the multifunctional stair-climbing seat through an infrared ray, and then calculates the progressing path required for avoiding the obstacle; a control module which is used for controlling a first motor driving the multifunctional stair-climbing seat to move based on a control instruction input by a remoter; a posture collectingmodule which is used for collecting the moving postures of the multifunctional stair-climbing seat in a real-time manner, and controlling a second motor adjusting the inclination angle of a backrestto move based on the moving postures. The invention is used for resolving the technical problem of automatic stair climbing by wheelchairs.

1 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: The experiment showed that a new designed shoe can improve OA patients in ascending or descending the stairs and improve their fatigue score, so it may be useful to improve their life quality through decreasing their pain in ascending and descend the stairs.
Abstract: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common painful and chronic condition that affects a large proportion of the older population Patients with knee OA often present with decreased stair climbing performance, measured as time needed to ascend and descend a given number of stairs, and stair climbing performance is frequently used as a measure of function in this patient group The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a new shoe on improving knee OA in ascending and descending the stairs in terms of pain and fatigue Ninety-nine patients were divided into two group by gender and age adjustment Group one consisted of forty nine patients, 44 (898%) female and 5 (102) male, mean age was 5871±698 in this group Group two was consisted of 50 patients 43 (86%) female and 7 (14%) male, mean age was 5838±884 in this group Visual analog scale (VAS) and fatigue score and duration of ascending and descending of stairs was studied in the patients with and without wearing the new shoe VAS and fatigue score were lower in patients during wearing the designed shoe, although there was no significant difference in ascending and descending duration of stairs with or without shoe Our experiment showed that a new designed shoe can improve OA patients in ascending or descending the stairs and improve their fatigue score, so it may be useful to improve their life quality through decreasing their pain in ascending and descending the stairs

1 citations

Patent
15 Sep 2010
TL;DR: In this article, a dual-purpose barrow used in stairs and flat ground, which is formed by a body, a support plate, support wheels, a bottom plate, crawlers and the like.
Abstract: The utility model discloses a dual-purpose barrow used in stairs and flat ground, which is formed by a body, a support plate, support wheels, a bottom plate, crawlers and the like. The bottom plate is slantingly welded on one face, equipped with the support wheels, of the body, two sides of the bottom plate are fixed with the two crawlers via crawler guide wheels, slanting angle of the bottom plate accords with gradient of a stair so as to guarantee the crawlers to be exactly slantingly laid on inclined faces of stair-steps when pulling the barrow on the stairs by handholding a circular handle, and in stair ascending, the purposes of energy saving and stability of stair climbing of the barrow are realized by sliding and rolling of the crawlers on the inclined faces formed on the stair-steps. The barrow has the advantages of simple structure, convenient utilization, stability and easy operation in stair ascending, and capability of being used in both flat ground and stairs, thereby having high popularization value.

1 citations

Patent
04 Sep 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, a hybrid-power stair climbing wheel chair with a climbing handle and a pendulum-type seat is presented, where the driving motor is connected with the cone pulley A and the climbing handle B through a chain.
Abstract: The utility model provides a hybrid-power stair climbing wheel chair, comprising a chassis (1), wherein two front driving wheels (2) and two rear driving wheels (3) are arranged on the chassis, the front driving wheels and the rear driving wheels are arranged oncrawler belts (4), the front driving wheels are provided with a chain wheel (5), the chain wheel is connected with a cone pulley A (6) arranged on the chassis through a chain, the cone pulley A is connected with a cone pulley B (7) through a chain, the cone pulley B is connected with a climbing handle (8), the chassis is provided with a driving motor (9) and a pendulum-type seat (10), and the driving motor is connected with the cone pulley A. The utility model can be used as a stair climbing wheel chair.

1 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202344
2022121
202165
202090
2019129
201896