By Jirapan Boonnoon
The Nation
Published on December 11, 2008

Invention provides greater freedom, quality of life for disabled

A desire to increase the quality of life for elderly and disabled people has led to an international award for a student team from Thammasat University's Engineering Faculty.

The team designed and developed a Manual Standing Wheelchair, which won a silver award in this year's i-Create Student Design Challenge, organised by the International Convention on Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology.

Nirun Maipothi, one of the three-member winning team of mechanical engineering students from Thammasat University, said the Manual Standing Wheelchair was the third version of the device, which remains in development. A fourth version is expected before the end of this year.

The other two team members are Anusit Srichanya and Kornnarong Srimee.

The Manual Standing Wheelchair comes with removable push handles, twin gas cylinders, spoked rear wheels, padded arm rests and knee supports and a swing-away leg rest allowing an occupant to stand with ease and safety.

It is not only designed to allow the simpler performance of home or work-based activities, but also to facilitate physical therapy. The wheelchair weighs about 20kg and can handle a maximum load of about 70kg. Its standing position holds an occupant at 80 degrees from horizontal.

The wheelchair is designed for disabled or elderly people, paraplegics or sufferers of muscular dystrophy.

Anusit said the wheelchair would enable chair-bound people to perform daily activities and exercise by themselves, giving them better health, better spirits and a better quality of life.

"We wanted to develop the wheelchair to help disabled people and patients in Thailand to enjoy a better life at an affordable price. The Manual Standing Wheelchair costs about Bt15,000 per unit," Kornnarong said. "One of its most important benefits may be helping disabled people to feel better by allowing them to stand up."

He said the team had already made five Manual Standing Wheelchairs for patients and disabled people, and was working on another five.

Bunyong Rungroungdouyboon, a lecturer at Thammasat University and project advisor to the student team, said the Manual Standing Wheelchair was invented as the students' senior project and had been under development since 2006. The wheelchair is not only a senior students' project, but is also an invention with the potential to help many disabled people, because similar devices imported from overseas cost about five times more, he said.

The competition in which the wheelchair won a silver award was staged as part of the second International Convention on Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology (i-Create), which was held in Bangkok. It was open only to students and had the theme "Human Machine Interface".

Nirun said the team was developing a model of the wheelchair that was semi-powered, to enable occupants greater ease of use and to increase their daily activities. The new model, which is expected to be finished by the end of this year, will support a load of up to 100kg, he said.