Imagine having to ask for help to do something so simple for most people. A young man who has CP and is about to enter high school, doesn't want to have to ask his grandmother for help. Recently a team of students at CCBC-Catonsville designed and fabricated an excellent solution.
We saw this solution at At V-LINC's monthly Project Review & Acceptance Committee meeting on December 14. Volunteer engineers were treated to a great presentation by students from CCBC-Catonsville. The project these students took on for V-LINC was to help Tommy dress himself. Their presentation was memorable because the solution the team developed was significantly under-budget, had a very simple design (some would say elegant) and it is portable. All of these elements make it very user-friendly.
How did we find out about Tommy's dilemma?
Tommy's grandmother heard about V-LINC's What I Wish for My Child Program in the spring of 2011 and submitted a request to us on our web site. It read, "I want Infomation about the device to help my grandson (Tommy Age 11) to dress himself. I heard about the device on Fox 45's Wednesday morning news show. Thankyou..."
When we contacted the family for details, we learned that Tommy (shown above) can dress himself with moderate assistance and effort. His upper body strength is very good, but he doesn't have sufficient strength and flexibility in his legs to put on his pants solo. Tommy's strengths include his good humor a great attitude. Before approving this request a V-LINC Client Service Team consisting of one a volunteer engineer and medical professional (a physical therapist in this case) visited Tommy at home.
The team assessed Tommy's abilities, saw no health or safety issues that could create concern, and so recommended approval. The Project Review Committee officially approved the project as a What I Wish for My Child winner and V-LINC found an engineering instructor at one of our partnering schools who took on the project for one of his classes.
The CCBC-Catonsville engineering class worked for a whole semester, learning about CP, visiting Tommy, creating various design models and trying out materials to make the dressing device work easily with no rough edges or corners to injure Tommy. The final design earned applause and compliments from the engineers at the final review before Tommy received his dressing assist.
V-LINC is very happy that this is a product that can be replicated for others very inexpensively, is very useful to Tommy and his grandmother and the project provided a client-centered experience for a team of aspiring engineers who obviously took care with their work. Including the client in the process is a wonderful experience for both the engineers, children and adults we help. The end result is always better with team work!
These three students made the presentation to V-LINC's staff and volunteers for their whole class.
Lauren (on left) is holding the device inserted into a pair of gym shorts.
