Introduction 

Our task is to create a system to "unweight" a patient at a physical therapy clinic. Unweighting a patient involves supporting the patient through a harness so that they do not need to hold up their full weight, only part of it. We are going to create a system that can be installed at a clinic that will allow therapists to unweight patients while working with them. The end goal of the system is to have the system be able to unweight a patient by up to 1000 lbs within a 5% deviation. The system should allow a patient to move forward/back X meters and side to side Y meters while still having a consistent unweighting. The system needs to be controlled by the therapist by a human interface that takes in the patient's weight, the percent of unweighting needed, and a mechanism to raise and lower the harness.

Motivation

The idea behind this project is to create a better system for use in a physical therapy clinic than is currently available to "unweight" a patient while doing exercise. Current systems only allow a patient to remain stationary while being unweighted, making the only exercise they are able to do is use a treadmill to simulate walking. Our system will allows patients to move around within a decent sized area while being unweighted at a consistent amount.

Sponsor Information

Dr. Mizner

Runs a physical therapy clinic for which the project is intended

Email: xxxx@montana.edu