Land vehicles – Wheeled – Occupant propelled type
Patent
1996-07-16
1999-10-12
Hurley, Kevin
Land vehicles
Wheeled
Occupant propelled type
280755, 180907, A61G 500
Patent
active
059644737
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention concerns a wheelchair for transporting or assisting the displacement of at least one user, particularly a handicapped person or a person with little or no mobility, or a child, comprising a chassis with wheels and a means for supporting at least a portion of the user's weight along a vertical line of action when the chair is moving on a surface, said wheels consisting of two main wheels with a common transverse principal axle, and contact wheels comprising at least one front wheel that turns and is in front of the principal axle, and at least one rear wheel that turns and is behind the principal axle.
The applications of the invention extend to a variety of chairs of novel design, or already known in the art, all having in common the ability to provide movable support or a prop for a person who either requires assistance to walk or is unable to walk, such as an individual with handicapped lower limbs, an accident victim, a patient recovering from surgery who is forbidden to walk or advised against walking, a small child requiring a stroller, etc. Thus, the device may take the form of a manually operated or motorized movable wheelchair for either indoor or outdoor use, or any type of chair with castors, a stroller for a handicapped person or a child, a baby carriage, or a walker which supports the user's hands or arms to relieve pressure on the legs, and other such rolling devices or similar light vehicles.
Many types of wheelchairs already exist. In particular, U.K. Publication GB-A-2 051 702 concerns a chair for a handicapped person having a chassis associated with an energy storage device to assist it in negotiating obstacles. This element consists of a simple contact wheel which is a rear wheel mounted on a pivoting arm and connected by a spring to an element of the wheelchair chassis. The chassis consists of one portion and the chair is manually operated, rather than motorized.
The manual chair proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,310,167 has a shock absorber connected to an element of the chassis and the arm supporting the rear contact wheel. The chassis consists of two portions which can be separated from each other by a variable distance.
Other embodiments with rear contact wheels are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,848,883, 4,245,847 and 3,976,152.
All these chairs have various elements which only partially meet safety and efficiency requirements, particularly for motorized wheelchairs.
Moreover, all these devices present a problem of when the wheels must clear obstacles. Indoor obstacles might consist of thresholds or sometimes steps. Outdoors, they may be curbs, gutters, stones, or any rough areas in the terrain, if the user wishes to navigate unpaved areas. Except for strollers and baby carriages, for reasons of stability, such wheelchairs often lack suspension systems, as they are usually short and narrow in design to reduce bulk. Thus, the wheels bump into obstacles and maneuvers becomes difficult, rough, or at the very least, uncomfortable. Furthermore, if certain wheels do not touch the ground or if the chair encounters an obstacle while moving along a slope, the chair becomes unstable.
Wheelchair users particularly appreciate wheelchairs of the type described above with two main wheels behind the center of gravity to act as drive wheels, because they improve the chair's turning circle in comparison to outdoor models with forced turning, and also because the front wheels, not being the drive wheels, are smaller, allowing the user to more closely approach the object he or she wishes to reach. On the other hand, small front wheels, which might take the form of turning castors, make it difficult to navigate obstacles such as curbstones. Wheels such as this must be raised up for the wheelchair to climb a curb, causing the chair to tip backwards. Since this is dangerous, most manufacturers propose two additional small contact wheels located behind the main wheels, higher than the ground, which contact the ground if the chair's position exceeds a certain angle, thereby preventing a back
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Degonda Andre
Wuthrich Thomas
Degonda-Rehab S.A.
Hurley Kevin
LandOfFree
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