PD MEDICAL

This project was about the development of a product for the help in rehabilitation for people with Parkinson’s disease. The developed aid is the Pd Medical, a device designed to help Parkinson’s patients cope with their walking disorders such as festination, freezing and bradykinesia. Wait what.... what are these disorders you probably wonder. Festination is an alteration in gait in which the patient quickens and shortens their steps it is hard for them to slow down and stop often causing patients to fall. Freezing of gait is a disorder in which patients are unable to initiate or continue locomotion. This gives the patient the feeling of being glued to the ground, which impairs their mobility and can also cause falling. Bradykinesia causes difficulty with repetitive movements like maintaining a normal walking rhythm, patients tend to start shuffling forwards instead. The PD Medical uses tactile cueing technology to help the patient restoring the ability to walk with a normal rhythm and therefore a better gait, it tries to prevent moments of freezing. By doing this, the chance of festination also becomes much smaller. Conducted tests during the project have proven a great potential for the use of this device.

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