Diseño y construcción de un prototipo de rehabilitador para la gonartrosis en personas de la tercera edad

Abstract

The degree project focuses on designing and building a prototype for the treatment of gonarthrosis in the knee applied to the elderly. For this, a bibliographic research was carried out on some of the most common rehabilitation methods used for gonarthrosis, in order to verify and choose design parameters, movements to be performed in this case of flexion and extension, mechanical components were designed, load analysis and simulations were carried out with the help of SOLIDWORKS software. For the manufacture of the rehabilitator, a selection of materials available in the national market was made, the respective calculation is made for the lifting of loads which counts the selection of the motor and for the electrical and electronic part, simulations were carried out in proteus for the connections and simulations of the Arduino. The final prototype integrated an-Arduino Mega-based control system, a stepper motor with its respective operating driver, limit switches, physical matrix keyboard, LCD screen and a Bluetooth module. The developed program allows entry of a key to start the treatment, selection of levels according to the patient's need, rehabilitation time, in addition to the pause, resumption and emergency stop buttons were integrated with their respective pilot lights to show the actions of each button, in addition the programming was carried out in blocks to have communication between the App and the Bluetooth module by means of serial jumps. The rehabilitator was put into operation for field trials, being evaluated for patient safety.