Research On Assistive Chair Design For Elderly People

The aging population is the major character during the development of china in 21 century. With aging, many elderly people have difficulty in rising from a chair. Rising to a standing position from a sitting position is one of the most activities of daily life. Inability to rise independently often needs other's help. In typical bad case, elderly people who cannot operate standing up motion will fall into the wheelchair life. It causes serious effect on the physical and mental health of the elderly, which turns out to be a great burden to the family and the society.The aim of this research was to ease the problem of standing up motion, and design an assistive chair for elderly people. Firstly, we measured the motions of elderly and young adults, using 3D motion analysis techniques when they stood up from the chair. And we found elderly people cannot develop with enough knee torques needed to rise because of the decrease in force degenerating capacity of their body. In this paper, we developed the assistive chair to help elderly people rise from a chair with fewer loads and use automatic mode. We verified the performance of the assistive chair through sEMG analysis. The result had showed the assistive chair can improve the ability of self-care and the quality of life.