With an aging population there is a growing need to assist people with disabilities. Particularly crucial is assisting people who cannot stand between positions necessary for everyday living, such as from a wheelchair to the toilet. It is unsafe to transfer people with direct manual techniques, thus a patient handling device is required. To reduce the burden on the healthcare system it is beneficial for disabled people to be cared for in-home. Many in-home caregivers may be physically impaired, thus patient handling devices for this use must require as little effort as possible. This thesis found that existing manual patient handling devices contained significant weaknesses when used for in-home care and there is potential to improve upon them. Expert interviews, computer modelling and physical models were used to develop a novel patient handling device which addresses these identified weaknesses. A reduction in the number of operator tasks, operation time and operation force was achieved. A method of supporting the patient solely by their upper body is required by the novel patient handling device, though an acceptable way of incorporating this has yet to be achieved. Testing of an upper body enclosure support revealed that a person may be supported by their lower thorax without substantial clamping or physical effort from the patient. Such a support has potential to be developed into an acceptable solution. Further development and testing in variable conditions encountered during practical patient handling is required.

Millions of people each year spend some portion of their time using mobility aids to facilitate periods of non-weight bearing ambulation. The use of these devices changes the loading conditions of the lower extremities, which may result in skeletal muscle adaptations. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effects of 3 types of mobility aids on lower-extremity muscle activity. Evaluation was based on 1) measured muscle activation signals using electromyography (EMG), and 2) measured joint kinematics and ground reaction forces, which were used to predict muscle forces. 16 healthy subjects (7 female, 9 male), ages 18-27 participated in the study. Subjects were instructed to ambulate using each of three mobility aids (crutches, a knee scooter and a temporary-injury prosthesis) as well as normal walking. EMG and motion capture were used to obtain bilateral data from the lower half of the body during ambulation on each of these mobility aids and walking (10 trials on each per subject). Muscles studied were right and left vastus lateralis (VLR, VLL), rectus femoris (RFR, RFL), Biceps femoris long head (BFR, BFL), and gastrocnemius medialis (GMR, GML). Joint kinematics and ground reaction force data (joint kinetics) were acquired using a standard camera-based motion capture system. The measured joint kinetics were used as inputs to the open source musculoskeletal biomechanics software OpenSim (SimTK, Stanford, CA), which allowed prediction of muscle force data for a representative subject during each mode of ambulation. As compared to walking, the following differences in EMG activation were significant. For the knee scooter, increases in VLR, RFR, BFL and decreases in GMR. For the TI prosthesis, increases in VLR, RFR, BFR, VLL, RFL, GML and decreases in GMR. For crutches, increases in BFR, VLL, RFL, BFL, GML and decreases in VLR, GMR. Muscle force results were similar, but demonstrated inadequacy of current musculoskeletal simulation software to resolve muscle forces during non-weight bearing portions of gait based solely on kinetic data. Results for walking data were similar to what is reported in the literature for normal gait. This study provides useful bilateral data that describe measured lower-extremity EMG activation amplitudes and muscle force predictions based on kinetic data during ambulation using three different ambulatory aids, compared to normal walking. Based on a criteria of maintaining muscle activation, the TI prosthesis proved most effective among the devices tested. The data presented will be valuable to clinicians in providing insight into which mobility aid may be best suited for a particular patient. It is anticipated that these data will provide designers of mobility aids with a protocol for evaluation of designs based on their potential to cause or prevent muscle adaptations.

The long white cane offers many benefits for the blind and visually impaired. Still, many report being injured both indoors and outdoors while using the long white cane. One frequent cause of injury is due to the fact that the long white cane cannot detect obstacles above the waist of the user. This thesis presents a system that attempts to augment the capabilities of the long white cane by sensing the environment around the user, creating a map of obstacles within the environment, and providing simple haptic feedback to the user. The proposed augmented cane system uses the Asus Xtion Pro Live infrared depth sensor to capture the user's environment as a point cloud. The open-source Point Cloud Library (PCL) and Robotic Operating System (ROS) are used to process the point cloud. The points representing the ground plane are extracted to more clearly define potential obstacles. The system determines the nearest point for each 1degree across the horizontal view. These nearest points are recorded as a ROS Laser Scan message and used in a simple haptic feedback system where the rumble feedback is based on two different cost functions. Twenty-two volunteers participated in a user demonstration that showed the augmented cane system can successfully communicate the presence of obstacles to blindfolded users. The users reported experiencing a sense of safety and confidence in the system's abilities. Obstacles above waist height are detected and communicated to the user. The system requires additional development before it could be considered a viable product for the visually impaired.

Medical technology is a field of work with connection to prevention, diagnosis, monitoring, treatment and care. The company Human care is a well-established company in Sweden with red rollators seen all over Sweden. The product family of Human care has four different units of mobility aid solutions. These are lifting devices, rollators, healthcare beds, and convertible chairs. In common they share the same brand, but they do not have any clear connection to each other when it comes to form, colour and texture. In this thesis a visual brand language is developed and created for the company. At the same time, it is implemented and developed on a lifting solution for patient mobility in the healthcare. To find a brand language which should be easier to implement on the products investigations into the brand and products has been done. By trying to find a common ground in the current products the step from creation to implementation of a guideline will be smaller. Further, research has been done in colour psychology, ergonomics, surface textures and forms. The result of this thesis is a guideline which the company can use as a base when developing new products. In this thesis, it has been implemented on a lifting device for patient transportation.

Dans un contexte de mobilité ubiquitaire, des différents objets sont capables d'interagir avec les utilisateurs pour leurs fournir des services innovants et les aider à optimiser leurs plans de déplacement. En effet, le nombre des utilisateurs est ainsi que le nombre de fournisseurs de service demandés par ces utilisateurs sont en pleine augmentation. Cette croissance implique un aspect de concurrence et nécessite des choix optimisés. Dans ce cadre, l'objectif de cette thèse est de concevoir et optimiser un système d'aide au déplacement qui couvre non seulement les services de déplacement quotidien mais aussi les services touristiques, culturels et bien d'autres. Les travaux de recherche présentés dans ce manuscrit proposent la mise en place d'une Plateforme de Recherche et de composition des Services d'Aide à la Mobilité (PRoSAM) afin d'optimiser les tâches de recherche, composition et distribution des Informations de Mobilité Avancée (IMA). L'aspect dynamique et distribué du problème, nous a conduit à adopter une modélisation orientée agent afin de s'adapter aux conditions d'un environnement ubiquitaire. Grâce à une approche de changement dynamique des rôles des agents utilisateurs et un protocole de négociation innovant, les clients sont capables d'échanger les services d'une manière autonome et d’établir des accords totaux ou partiels en fonction de l'offre et de la demande. Finalement, les résultats de simulation présentés dans cette thèse démontrent l'efficacité des approches adoptées / In a context of ubiquitous mobility, different objects are able to interact with users to provide them with innovative services and help them optimize their travel plans. Indeed, the number of users and the number of service providers requested by these users are actively growing. This growth involves an aspect of competition and requires optimized choices. In this context, the aim of this thesis is to design and optimize a mobility aid system that covers not only transport services but also tourist services, cultural services and many others. The research presented in this thesis proposes the establishment of a Plateforme de Recherche et de composition des Services d'Aide à la Mobilité (PRoSAM) to optimize research, composition and distribution tasks of advanced mobility information. The dynamic and distributed aspects of the problem have led us to adopt an agent-oriented modeling approach to cope with the conditions of a ubiquitous environment. Thanks to a dynamic role switching strategy of user agents and an innovative negotiation protocol, customers are able to exchange services autonomously and to establish full or partial agreements in order to optimize communications over the network. Finally, the simulation results presented in this thesis demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches