JPH0639007A - Walking frame - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To constitute the walking frame so that a patient can adjust height of a cushion material of the walking frame by providing a detaining member for fixing or releasing an arm part pipe frame at arbitrary height in a sliding part of a body part pipe frame and the arm part pipe frame, and providing an operating member for executing remote control of the detaining member through a cable member. CONSTITUTION:When a lever 17 attached to the lower part of the upper pipe frame 16 is drawn in the direction as indicated with an arrow C, a latch claw 13a of a latch device 13 is drawn in the direction as indicated with an arrow D against energizing force of a spring 13b through a cable A, a rack 14 is released and an insert pipe 15 becomes slidable in a vertical pipe frame 12. When a cushion material B is drawn out in the direction as indicated with an arrow E and adjusted to arbitrary height, and the lever 17 is set free, the claw 13a of the latch device 13 is engaged to the rack 14 by energizing force of the spring 13b and the cushion material B is fixed. In such a way, by only operating the lever 17, the left and the right latches 13 are synchronized and operated, and locking and unlocking of the insert pipe 15 can be executed surely and easily.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

[Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a walker for assisting walking when a physically handicapped person, an elderly person, or a sick person walks.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, rehabilitation is to physically, mentally, socially, and economically recover a person who has a mental disorder, a physical disorder, or a chronic illness as soon as possible. It is classified into medical rehabilitation, social rehabilitation, educational rehabilitation and vocational rehabilitation. Among these rehabilitation, medical rehabilitation is a continuous work that is started immediately after the illness or injury of the sick person or the victim starts, to minimize the disability and the temporary loss of function. The purpose of this is to recover the sickness when it is given and to maximize the physical function of those who have a permanent dysfunction.

In medical rehabilitation, when a disorder occurs, medical treatment of the patient is first performed, and then medical and surgical treatment is performed to remove or reduce the disorder of the patient. In many cases, medical rehabilitation is already performed at the stage. That is,
Care has been taken to prevent the occurrence of secondary damage by giving physical treatment and work treatment to the patient before the symptom is fixed. Therefore, recently, the technique of medical rehabilitation has also been often applied to emergency medical care in lifesaving centers. In this medical rehabilitation, generally, at the beginning of acute symptoms, in addition to medical / surgical treatment, exercise training with the immediate goal of recovering basic movement ability is instructed. Medical rehabilitation in hospitals focuses on this stage. In addition, after completion of medical / surgical treatment in a hospital, training in a hospital is often taken over by a rehabilitation center or continued at home for rehabilitation.

[0004] On the other hand, persons with disabilities are roughly classified into three groups, "persons with physical disabilities", "persons with disabilities", and "social disadvantages". These are as follows. It is defined. For example, when a human body is sick or injured, the body may be damaged. At this time, it is desirable to completely recover the body damage by medical treatment, but in some cases, the body may be left with defects or deformation. This condition is called physical dysfunction. Next, when the eating and changing actions are impaired or the walking is impossible due to this physical dysfunction, this is called incompetence. For example, it is considered that the rehabilitation reduced the incapacity when a disabled person who had an inability to walk due to a physical failure such as amputation of the lower limbs was able to walk with an appropriate prosthetic device. However, regarding the content of incapacity, the perspective changes when the target movement is socially expanded. In other words, considering how much disadvantages and restrictions there are in carrying out the desired social and cultural life according to age and gender, this is not the disability classification of individual persons with disabilities, but the disability classification. It is a classification of the social environment surrounding people. In other words, it is necessary to consider disability as a social disadvantage when an individual with a disability has a disadvantage in his / her position in the society compared with his / her fellow healthy person and his / her role as a human is limited. However, in this case, the disabled person is positioned as a social disadvantage.

In general, rehabilitation medicine is centered on the attending physician who specializes in rehabilitation medicine.
The roles of physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers, and rehabilitation specialists in rehabilitation nurses perform in teamwork, and their roles are explained below. Rehabilitation doctors diagnose and treat disorders as the attending physicians for patients, but they need not only medical and surgical treatments but also comprehensive treatments that include restoration of the patients' psychological and social adjustments. To be done. A physiotherapist is a profession whose main purpose is to improve patients with motor dysfunction by using physical means and exercise. Measurements, activities of daily living, walking analysis, etc. are performed as necessary, and the results are submitted to the evaluation meeting of the rehabilitation team. And when the physical therapy program is decided at the evaluation meeting,
The physical therapist trains the patient according to the program. Occupational therapists also perform precise movement tests of motor function, cognitive behavior evaluation, daily living movement evaluation, psychological evaluation, pre-occupational evaluation, etc. for the physically disabled and these occupational therapy programs When the decision is made, physical function improvement, cognitive function improvement, activities of daily living training, pre-vocational training, etc. are carried out according to the program, but the emphasis may be on maintaining psychological activity as psychological / supportive occupational therapy. . Social workers play an important role in the patient's goal determination and achievement in the rehabilitation team, and identify psychological and social problems and provide clues to their solutions. In addition to these members, specialists such as speech therapists, clinical psychologists, and prosthetics and orthotics participate, but the rehabilitation nurse is an extremely important member that must be remembered. Rehabilitation nurses are not just nurses, but are required to have knowledge of rehabilitation medicine, be able to understand the content of disabilities, and have an attitude that responds to their needs according to the patient's adaptation process to the disability. .

The above-mentioned rehabilitation treatment is slightly different depending on the type of disease, but in any case, the patient is trained to maximize the remaining ability of the patient, and the independence of daily activities and the reintegration into society are carried out. The aim is to encourage patient readjustment towards For this purpose, it is important for the rehabilitation team to accurately grasp the injury level of the patient, to develop an effective rehabilitation program and to carry out effective treatment procedures. In particular, if the upper and lower limbs are damaged due to a work accident or a general accident, or if the upper and lower limbs are paralyzed due to a stroke, unless the walking training is started immediately, the possibility of recovery of the walking function becomes extremely low. . For this reason, as a physical therapy, it was developed as a rehabilitation therapy for walking training by engaging in sitting training as early as possible, teaching a sense of balance and adding automatic movements and passive movements of the four limb joints. Actively using walking aids for effective rehabilitation treatment. A walker is a typical walking aid for the rehabilitation treatment. As shown in FIG. 1, the walker has a leg pipe member 2 having casters 1 at its lower end arranged in a horse-like shape, and a cushion material 3 for holding a user of the walker attached to the upper part of the pipe frame. ing. A sliding pipe is fitted to the inner diameter of the upper portion of the leg pipe member 2 at the lower portion of the holding pipe portion 2a that holds the cushion material 3 at the upper portion of the pipe frame, and the height of the cushion material 3 is increased. After the adjustment, the tightening knob 4 can be tightened and fixed.

[0007]

However, when the conventional walker described above is actually used for walking training of patients in a rehabilitation center such as a hospital, one walker is used by several patients. A physiotherapist, an occupational therapist, or a rehabilitation nurse adjusts the height of the cushion of the walker according to the height of the patient using the walker and tightens the tightening screw. Then, in order to prevent an unexpected accident due to the cushion material suddenly lowering during walking training of the patient, the patient should use it after sufficiently confirming that the cushion material is securely fixed. Therefore, when the patient tries to change the height of the cushioning material while using the walker for walking training, a considerable amount of force is required to loosen the tightening screw, which is difficult for the patient to adjust. There was a problem. In addition, since the walker's tightening screw is designed to be tightened at four points, even if a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, or rehabilitation nurse adjusts the height of the cushioning material, its operability is Not smooth,
There was also the problem of inconvenience in handling. Therefore, the walker of the present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and is used as an aid for a patient to carry out walking training using the walker or to move in a patient room, a hospital, or at home. An object of the present invention is to provide a walker that allows a patient or an attendant to easily adjust the height of the cushioning material of the walker when using the walker.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention, which has been made to achieve the above object, is provided with a leg pipe frame having a plurality of casters on the lower portion and an upper portion of the leg pipe frame protruding from the leg pipe frame. A walker comprising a plurality of torso pipe frames and an arm pipe frame slidably attached to the upper part of the torso pipe frame in an upward and downward direction for walking training or walking assistance, wherein the torso pipe is In the sliding part of the frame and the arm pipe frame,
A locking member for fixing or releasing the arm pipe frame at an arbitrary height is provided, and the locking member is provided to one or both of the arm pipe frame and the leg pipe frame via a cable member. The gist is a walker characterized by having an operating member for remotely operating the. The locking member may be composed of a long rack member provided on the sliding portion of the arm pipe frame and a latch member provided on the upper portion of the body pipe frame. The locking member may include a plurality of elongated holes formed in the sliding portion of the arm pipe frame and a pin member provided on the upper portion of the body pipe frame. The operation member may be an operation lever attached near the lower front portion of the arm pipe frame. The operation member may be an operation pedal attached near the front upper part of the leg pipe frame.

[0009]

According to the walker of the present invention, first, the operating member provided on one or both of the arm pipe frame and the leg pipe frame is operated. Then, the locking member provided at the sliding portion between the body pipe frame and the arm pipe frame is released via the cable member. By this action, the arm pipe frame can be slid upward and downward, and the arm pipe frame can be adjusted to an arbitrary height. Next, when the operating member is released, the locking member in turn fixes the sliding portion between the body pipe frame and the arm pipe frame. At this time, when the locking member is composed of the rack member and the latch member, the latch member of the body pipe frame is fitted into and removed from the rack member of the arm pipe frame, and the locking member has a long hole. And a pin member, the pin member of the body pipe frame is inserted into and removed from the elongated hole of the arm pipe frame.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT An embodiment of a walker according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. 2A is a perspective view of the walker of the first embodiment to which the present invention is applied, and FIG. 2B is a partially enlarged view of the walker. As shown in the figure, the walker of the present embodiment has a U-shaped lower pipe frame 11 having casters 10 at the lower four corners, and 90 ° forward on both the left and right upper surfaces of the lower pipe frame 11. A vertical pipe frame 12 connected via a hinge 11a for inclining, and a latch device 13 provided on the upper outer diameter portion of the vertical pipe frame 12 (usually a plastic cover is attached to prevent danger). , Which is omitted in the figure for explanation.)
Installed, the insertion pipe 15 slidably inserted into the inner diameter portion of the vertical pipe frame 12, the U-shaped upper pipe frame 16 formed on the upper portion of the insertion pipe 15, and the upper pipe frame 16 And a cushion material B attached to the upper surface of the upper pipe frame 16. The upper pipe frame 16 is, as shown in FIG.
The left and right short pipe portions 16a are detachable from the main body of the upper pipe frame 16 and fixed to the cushion material B side. Therefore, when packing the walker of this embodiment, if the cushion material B is pulled out together with the short pipe portion 16a from the upper pipe frame 16 and the vertical pipe frame 12 is tilted 90 degrees forward through the hinge 11a. It is designed to be compact and foldable.

Here, the operation and effect of the first embodiment will be described. First, the operation of taking out and assembling the first embodiment from the package will be described. Since the walker of the first embodiment has the shape shown in FIG. 3 when unpacked, the operator first raises the vertical pipe frame 12 from the lower pipe frame 11. Then, with the vertical pipe frame 12 completely standing, the self-locking of the hinge 11a is activated and fixed. Next, when the short pipe portion 16a to which the cushion material B is connected is inserted into the upper pipe frame 16, the assembly is completed and the shape shown in FIG.

Next, the function of adjusting the height of the cushion member B of the walker of the first embodiment will be described. The walker according to the first embodiment is always installed in a hospital, a hospital room, a rehabilitation center, or the like, and has an attending physician, a physical therapist, an occupational therapist,
Rehabilitation specialists, such as social workers and rehabilitation nurses, will adjust the height of the cushioning material B of the walker according to the height, age or disability of the patient undergoing rehabilitation treatment. ,
As shown in FIG. 2B, the walker operator pulls the lever 17 attached to the lower portion of the upper pipe frame 16 in the direction of arrow C. Then, the latch claw 13a of the latch device 13 is pulled through the cable A. The rack 14 is opened by being pulled in the direction of arrow D against the biasing force of the spring 13b. This action allows the bayonet pipe 15 to slide within the vertical pipe frame 12. Therefore, the cushion material B is pulled out in the direction of the arrow E to adjust it to an arbitrary height, and the lever 17 is released. Then, this time, the latch claw 13a of the latch device 13 meshes with the rack 14 by the biasing force of the spring 13b, and the cushion material B is fixed. As described above, the walker of the first embodiment has the lever 17
With one-touch operation, the latch devices 13 of the left and right vertical pipe frames 12 operate in synchronization,
The insertion pipe 15 can be locked / unlocked reliably and easily, and the operability and safety of the walker have been dramatically improved compared to the conventional ones, and it can be folded compactly to make it easy to pack. It has also become possible to greatly improve transportability. Therefore, the walker according to the first embodiment is used by a doctor, a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a social worker, a rehabilitation nurse, or other rehabilitation specialist when using the walker for rehabilitation treatment. Since the operability is improved, it is possible to dramatically reduce the labor and time spent for the operation, and it is also possible for the person with a slight disability or the sick to adjust the height of the cushion material B by himself / herself.

In the first embodiment, the latch device 13 is provided on the upper outer diameter portion of the vertical pipe frame 12, and the rack 14 engaging with the latch device is inserted into the pipe 15.
However, another embodiment will be described below. Figure 4
FIG. 4A is a perspective view of a walker of a second embodiment to which the present invention is applied, and FIG. 4B is a partially cross-sectional partially enlarged view of the walker. As shown in the figure, the walker of the second embodiment has casters 10, a lower pipe frame 11, a hinge 11a, a vertical pipe frame 12, an insertion pipe 15, an upper pipe frame 16, a cable A, a lever 17, and a cushion material B. The structure of the first embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment, but the walker of the present embodiment is provided with the pin fitting device 23 on the upper outer diameter portion of the vertical pipe frame 12 and the pin fitting is performed in the longitudinal direction of the insertion pipe 15. A plurality of elongated holes 24 through which the pin tips 23a of the coupling device 23 are inserted and removed are formed. Although the operation and effect of the second embodiment are the same as those of the first embodiment, the manufacturing cost can be suppressed lower than that of the first embodiment, so that an inexpensive and economical walker can be provided. The effect unique to the second embodiment can also be obtained. In addition, in the first and second embodiments of the present invention,
Connect the latch device 13 or the pin fitting device 23 to the cable A.
Lever 17 operated via the upper pipe frame 16
Although it is attached to the lower part of this, it is not limited to this position either, and it is desirable to change it in consideration of the ease of use of the operator. For example, as shown in FIG. The same effect as that of the above-described embodiment can be obtained by mounting it on the front upper surface of the pipe frame 11 or by using a pedal (not shown) instead of the lever 27.

[0014]

As described above in detail, the walker according to the present invention has a leg pipe frame provided with a plurality of casters on the lower portion and a plurality of body pipes projecting at appropriate places above the leg pipe frame. In a walker for walking training or walking assistance, which comprises a frame and an arm pipe frame slidably attached to the upper part of the body pipe frame in the upper and lower directions, a body pipe frame and an arm pipe frame A locking member for fixing or releasing the arm pipe frame at an arbitrary height is provided on the sliding portion of the arm, and either or both of the arm pipe frame and the leg pipe frame are engaged via a cable member. An operation member for remotely operating the stop member is provided, and further, the locking member is composed of a rack member and a latch member, or is composed of an elongated hole and a pin member. The operability and safety of the walker can be improved by using the operation lever attached near the lower front part of the arm pipe frame or the operating pedal attached near the upper front part of the leg pipe frame. Compared to this, it has improved significantly. Thereby, the walker of the present invention,
The time and effort required for operation are improved because the operability is improved when used by rehabilitation specialist staff such as the attending physician, physical therapist, occupational therapist, social worker, rehabilitation nurse, etc. It has been dramatically reduced, and it has become possible for a person with a slight disability or illness to operate it himself.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a conventional walker.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view and a partially enlarged view showing a walker according to a first embodiment to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of folding of the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a walker according to a second embodiment of the present invention and an enlarged view of a partial cross section.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing a walker according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Casters 11 Lower Pipe Frame 11a Hinge 12 Vertical Pipe Frame 13 Latch Device 13a Latch Claw 13b Spring 14 Rack 15 Insert Pipe 16 Upper Pipe Frame 16a Short Pipe Part 17 Lever 23 Pin Fitting Device 23a Pin Tip 24 Long Hole 27 Lever (Pedal ) A cable B Cushion material

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A leg pipe frame having a plurality of casters at a lower portion, a plurality of body pipe frames projectingly provided at appropriate places on an upper portion of the leg pipe frame, and an upper portion of the body pipe frame at an upper portion. In a walker for walking training or walking assistance consisting of an arm pipe frame slidably attached downward, in the sliding portion between the trunk pipe frame and the arm pipe frame, the arm pipe A locking member for fixing or releasing the frame at an arbitrary height is provided, and one or both of the arm pipe frame and the leg pipe frame are remotely operated via the cable member. A walker comprising an operating member. 2. The locking member comprises an elongated rack member provided on a sliding portion of the arm pipe frame and a latch member provided on an upper portion of the body pipe frame. The walker according to item 1. 3. The locking member comprises a plurality of elongated holes formed in the sliding portion of the arm pipe frame and a pin member provided on the upper portion of the body pipe frame. Walker described in paragraph. 4. The walker according to claim 1, wherein the operation member is an operation lever attached near a lower front portion of the arm pipe frame. 5. The walker according to claim 1, wherein the operating member is an operating pedal mounted near a front upper portion of the leg pipe frame.