Wednesday's Meeting

We had received an assignment on Monday to talk to friends and relatives who have biomedical engineering as a part of their life. Since then, Curtis talked with his grandma who is his "inspiring person". His grandmother had two knee replacements, and she suggested a few problems and solutions with her surgery.
  
One of the problems was with her CPM machine. This machine continuously bends and straightens her knee to keep it from sticking in one position. She had to lay in her bed all day with her leg strapped to the machine. However, she could not unstrap the Velcro in times when she needed to move, such as going to the bathroom. Because the machine was holding her leg in place all the way up to her hip, being in her sixties and still recovering from surgery, she couldn't raise herself to reach the straps. This prevented her from moving anywhere without assistance with the Velcro. This proved to be quite a hassle, especially at night.
  
During Curtis's interview, his grandma expressed that what she wanted was a way to unstrap the Velcro with out needing assistance. She suggested something to lift her to a sitting position might work, so she could undo the Velcro if she needed to get out of bed.

Yesterday, our team brainstormed ideas to accomplish this, or another way of enabling her to unstrap her leg without assistance. We thought of a few ideas.

1. Have a sort of seat belt strap instead of a Velcro strap, so she could just press a button with a cane to get herself out.
2. Have a very precise cane with a claw on the end to be able to grab the Velcro.
3. Have a remote to automatically undo the strap when needed.
4. Have a device to lift her to a sitting position, enabling her to unstrap herself.

Next we discussed each idea and what ideas might work well together. Although the lifting device might be nice, we found a few things that may not work with it, and so decided to see what else we could come up with. We discussed different options with the cane idea, but in the end, decided that it wouldn't solve all of the problems as well as we had hoped. Already having a remote to adjust the movement of the leg, adding a button to undo straps, shouldn't be too hard to add on. After further discussion, we decided that the seat belt strap idea paired up with the remote idea, would be the best solution.


We're looking forward to Monday's meeting when we hear what results other teammates get from their interviews with their "inspiring people." We plan to pick our final project on Monday as well.


-Madeline & Curtis