Land vehicles – Wheeled – Occupant propelled type
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-27
2001-08-07
DePumpo, Daniel G. (Department: 3611)
Land vehicles
Wheeled
Occupant propelled type
C280S250100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06270101
ABSTRACT:
The invention relates to a mobile standing device for use in rehabilitation, with a frame, a plurality of running wheels, a seat which can be folded up; adjustable knee cushions, a vertically adjustable chest cushion, a vertically adjustable therapy table, adjustable foot holders, and two handwheels which, for the purpose of moving the device, each are drive-connected with one of the running wheels via a chain or belt drive. A standing device with said features is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,484,151.
A standing device is understood to be a device which helps disabled people not capable of standing (e.g. due to paraplegia, multiple sclerosis, muscular diseases, open back, skull-brain trauma etc.) to move into an upright standing position. If the device is designed as a mobile unit, it offers the user the additional possibility to move with the device while being in a standing position. With the help of the hand wheels and the chain or belt drives, the user himself can generate the torques for moving the device and transmit same to the running wheels.
For using the standing device, the user first sits down on the seat, fixes his feet on the foot holders, and supports the knees on the knee cushions. The seat is then folded up by manual or motor force depending on the model, so that the user is forced into the standing position. In said position, the user is supported from behind by the seat and from the front by the knee cushions and the chest cushion. By turning the handwheels the user can move himself and the standing device across the floor.
Such a mobile standing device poses the serious problem that the disabled user or his helper can get injured on the exposed chain or belt drives, for example if parts of the body or pieces of garment get caught in a chain or belt drive.
According to the state of the art (U.S. Pat. No. 3,493,245), it is known in connection with a similar mobile device to cover its chain drives by cover plates, which are located on the outside on a voluminous frame rack that surrounds the chain drive and a separate steering column for a steerable support wheel. Said frame construction and its covering require extremely high constructional expenditure and, furthermore, much space that is lost for the mobility of the user of the device and for helpers.
Therefore, the problem of the invention is to simplify the standing device of the type specified above by reducing the structural volume and by providing at the same time for a protected arrangement of the belt or chain drive.
For solving said problem the invention proposed based on a standing device of the type specified above a front, approximately vertically extending frame tube, on which the chest cushion and the therapy table are vertically adjustably supported, and where the chain or belt drives are arranged in the interior space of said frame tube.
Said front frame tube simplifies the structure of the standing device in the front zone to the extent that it combines within itself a number of functions because said frame tube is at the same time the bearing carrier for the support of the vertically adjustable chest cushion and the vertically adjustable therapy table as well as protective space for accommodating the chain or belt drives. It is particularly shown by the exemplified embodiment shown in the drawing that the frame tube has an extraordinarily small structural volume in spite of its many functions, so that more space is available for the user and the operating personnel. Provision is made according to a preferred embodiment that holders made of flat material are arranged in the interior of the front frame tube for the vertically adjustable support of the chest cushion and the therapy table, said holders being simultaneously fixable by clamping against the front frame tube by means of one single clamping element. With said advantageous further development of the invention, the vertically adjustable support elements for the chest cushion and the therapy table are consequently arranged in the interior of the front frame tube as well, namely protected in the best possible way and without taking up any additional space.
The chain or belt drive can be usefully tensioned by eccentrics, in which the handwheel shaft is supported on the front frame tube. Such eccentric clamping devices have a particularly simple structure as well and do not require any additional space in the interior of the front frame tube.
Furthermore, the foot holders each are secured with vertical adjustment on the lower frame part of the standing device by means of an oblong-hole clamping connection. The angle of each foot holder is additionally adjustable by means of an oblong-hole clamping connection. It is possible in this way to fix the foot at the correct level and in the right angular position.
Finally, provision is made that the lower part of the frame consists of two metal sheet cuts arranged spaced from each other. The front wheel and rear wheel bearings, the foot holders, a seat holder and the lifting device are secured on said pieces of metal sheet. Owing to the use of the spaced-apart metal sheet cuts for the lower part of the frame, said area of the frame can be particularly well adapted to the given conditions because no parts of the frame have to be bent, and an adequately torsion-resistant and favorable structure of said part of the frame for connecting the various holding devices is nonetheless obtained.
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patent: 840 575 (1952-06-01), None
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patent: 0 773 009 (1997-05-01), None
Collard & Roe P.C.
DePumpo Daniel G.
LandOfFree
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