A Tripod-Type Walking Assistance for the Stroke Patient

Abstract

This paper presents a tripod-type balancing support which assists the stroke patients during standing and walking. Stroke is the blockage or the damage of veins which supplies blood to the brain. It results in difficulty in speaking and understanding, loss of one-sided mobility. There are various walking aids like canes, crutches, and walkers are available in the market. But these walking aids fail to provide proper stability for the stroke survivors for their basic mobility. And also they always depend on the assistive person for their basic mobility. This leads to an unhappy situation for the patient as well as to the family. Commercially available exoskeleton for stroke patients is very costly, and such that normal person cannot afford that much higher amount. This work aims to provide the necessary stability during walking at a low cost for the stroke patient. Hence, a tripod type of balancing support is fabricated and tested with the stroke patient. From the experiment, it is seen that tripod walking support provides the necessary assistance required for the stroke patient and motivates the patient positively towards walking.