Yoshifusa Matsuura

Visual Estimation of Spatial Requirements for Locomotion in Novice Wheelchair Users

Locomotion using a wheelchair requires a wider space than does walking. Two experiments were conducted to test the ability of nonhandicapped adults to estimate the spatial requirements for wheelchair use. Participants judged from a distance whether doorlike apertures of various widths were passable or not passable. Experiment 1 showed that participants underestimated the spatial requirements for wheelchair use but overestimated the spatial requirements for walking. Experiment 2 showed that their underestimation improved but was not completely eliminated after 8 days of practice passing through apertures. Analyses of wheelchair performance in the practice condition showed that the underestimation may have arisen from misperception of the positions of the hands when the participants were grasping the wheelchair hand-rims. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

10416 A Study on Holding Mechanism on Transferring Devices

Today, physical strain on caregiver is a concern in a care facility. Specifically transferring from a bed to a wheelchair is hard work and causes a backache. Therefore, easy-to-use transferring devices are being developed in recent years. In our laboratory we have studied these devices which can pick person up and developed some prototypes. However, because these devices are leaned against with breast and knee, there are some problems. The first one is that users feel pain because of high pressure in chest. The second one is that they feel uneasy because the devices don’t hold their back. In our study, we developed a new transferring device which can hold person’s back and judged the performance of it in order to solve these problems. I designed a non-powered multi-link flexible arm system. These improvements will make stable transferring and enhance a sense of ease.

20703 A Study on the Behavior of Human Body during Car Crash

This paper describes a method of light-weighted on seat sliding rail by analyzing the changes of the force transmission from seat belt to seat sliding rail. It consists of three phases:(i)modeling the human body, the seat belt and the seat.(ii) dividing the movement of the human body into four stages, then to understand the movement of human body in the process of full-scale frontal impact.(iii) analyzing the force, the seat belt load on the seat sliding rail in two conditions, 1conventional installation position and 2new installation position of seat buckle, then discussing the significance of the new way in light-weight design of the seat sliding rail.

Simulation of Human Body Model in Sitting on a Wheelchair

In this study, the relation between vibration and a human body response is investigated paying attention to the human body response when in sitting on a wheelchair in vibrating space. Moreover, the human body model made by the computer simulation that can solve the control method of a human body is created based on sine wave vibration experiment data and level difference experiment data. Then, a wheelchair and a human body model were created using DADS which is rigid body analysis software. By giving the characteristic to each joint, the passive moment was generated and the active moment was generated by constructing control systems. As a result of simulation, the simulation model reproducing a human body action was able to be created. Key Word: Sitting Human Body Model, Simulation, Wheelchair, DADS