Concept Development in a Walking Assistive Device: Offset Handle With a Small Base Area

Concept Development in a Walking Assistive Device: Offset Handle With a Small Base Area

Suchada Rianmora, Kulayuk Poulpanich
Copyright: © 2022 |Pages: 39
DOI: 10.4018/IJKSS.306259
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Abstract

The design of a walking assistive device with a single stick, offset handle, and small base area platform has been introduced in this study as an alternative channel for supporting senior adults to walk by themselves with confidence while maintaining good posture. The stick can follow the rhythm of walking step, and the users can control it easily. To provide cost-effective design structure while preserving customer requirements, product design and development (PDD) with the assistance of finite element analysis (FEA) is applied in this study for simulating the load distribution on the area of interest. The perceptions from potential users expressed that “strong and stiff with light weight” were the main considerations for making a walking device. Aluminum material was suggested to be the reference for developing a walking cane. The concept of “usefulness of product” was applied as the guideline to help and support the design team for selecting the right design parameters of a walking cane based on the data obtained from the survey and customer perceptions.
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Introduction

Currently, the number of people aged 60 and older in Thailand stands at about 13 million, accounting for 20% of the population. Within the next 15 years, approximately 30.2 percent of Thai people will become senior citizens. This will cause many changes in this country including in the manufacturing section. For supporting “senior citizens”, manufacturers have tried to emphasize and focus more on developing and producing the alternative products with applying the concept of “universal design” where “accessibility and simplicity” are the key components. Social care and support guide of activities for senior adults with limited mobility will become an essential issue where “health-related products” have been introduced in various fields and categories. However, cost of manufacturing and selling price for those products are high since the specific materials applied and easy-to-use functions are involved. Moreover, common health problems for elders include loss of vision, hearing loss, upper and lower body pain, heart disease, diabetes and osteoarthritis. In addition, the senior adults are more likely to experience several conditions at the same time. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 28–35% of people 65 years or older fall annually. The number of fallers increases approximately to 32–42% in persons 70 years or older (World Health Organization, 2014). With the rapid increase in the aged population, the global market for elder care assistive devices is continuously growing. However, in Thailand, this is still in the initial stage where the industries cannot provide a right product to satisfy customer requirements. This problem is considered as one of health-related product problems, and it results in a mismatch with the growing demand of the market when focusing on product quality or product category. Particularly, the companies have some concerns about spending a lot of money for supporting the initial research and development process of elderly products. As the result, the obtained design with trial-and-error concept cannot satisfy the target users. In the near future, it is essential to focus on “customer-oriented” concept by creating products based on customer needs. For the business owner to compete with competitors, providing and offering the right products to the customers at the right time, right place and at the right price are very important and necessary (Rianmora et al., 2020, Rianmora & Werawatganon, 2021). Moreover, two factors have been identified as the key important issues for designers and manufacturers to launch a new product to the market: “know where it is going by having a clear vision”; and “follow a structured new product development process” (Tsimiklis et al., 2015).

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