Design of a scalable tremor suppression brace for Essential Tremor patients
Stijn Jagers op Akkerhuis (TU Delft - Industrial Design Engineering)
Wilhelm Frederik van der Vegte – Mentor (Internet of Things)
Anton Jellema – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Industrial Design Engineering)
IJsbrand de Lange – Coach
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
This report presents a design proposal for a product that will suppress the tremor of patients diagnosed with Essential Tremor (ET). People suffering from ET are restricted in their ability to function in everyday life, due to a constraint of performing delicate movements. Simple tasks, such as drinking and eating are a great challenge for individuals diagnosed with ET.
STIL B.V. works on the development of an alternative solution to dampen a forearm tremor. STIL B.V. is developing a product that dampens the tremor by actively counteracting the movement of its users. With this, the product offers tremor patients a solution that does not involve surgery or use of medication.
The project focuses on finding improvements for the STIL product by developing a solution for recently diagnosed ET patients with an invalidating forearm tremor. The final goal was to create a product that would improve the life quality of its users, by giving individuals with ET back control over their arms. ET patients often mentioned that it is difficult to be in a group or participate in a social activity. Awkward situations occur frequently, making them socially shy. The objective was to help patients regain social confidence by making use of the product.
The final product proposal exists of two parts, a brace and an active dampening element (Exshell). The brace is used to connect the Exshell to the arm. The Exshell contains an active dampening element to stabilize the arm. At the start of this project, the development of the brace, the part that has contact with the skin, was not yet started. A simple elastic band combined with a coarse vibration measurement principle was used for the prototypes.
An efficient attachment method to the users arm and a connection to the Exshell have been designed, made and tested. Additionally a set of different brace sizes has been developed to create a comfortable design for an as large as possible target group.
To stimulate the use of the product, a brace has been designed that is as comfortable as possible. This has been done by making an optimized ergonomic design for ET patients. The brace can be worn all day by the user and when needed the Exshell can be slid over the wrist and actively counteract forearm tremors.
An ergonomic test on healthy individuals has been conducted in order to discover the fit of the different developed brace sizes. The used scaling method for different sizes proved to be effective and by offering five different sizes a comfortable fit can be offered to almost everyone.
The usability and functionality of the brace design has been validated during a patient test. The test showed that the brace is easy to use for tremor patients.
The final design result presents a proposal of how the future product of STIL BV. might look like. The results from the analysis and validation phase have been combined and a future vision of the products embodiment is presented.