A lighter, but extra strong knee brace for the aged that suffer from knee issues has been developed domestically by Singapore engineering agency Delsson, in a collaboration with 3D printing specialists from Nanyang Technological College, Singapore (NTU Singapore).
Utilizing 3D printing strategies – often known as additive manufacturing – the crew has managed to scale back the burden of a standard exoskeleton knee brace, usually constructed utilizing steel, by 30 %, due to a brand new design that makes use of light-weight plastic and assistive springs.
Knee ache is a typical downside around the globe for individuals over 65, with an estimated one-third of the US inhabitants reported affected by knee ache at a while or one other[1]. In 2017, 20 % of the aged in Singapore aged 60 and above endure from continual ache.[2]
Braces are often prescribed to the aged sufferers to assist alleviate the burden on their knee joints, in addition to to help sufferers who’ve undergone surgical procedure on their knees, akin to reconstruction of torn ligaments, usually suffered by athletes.
Primarily based on the prototype assistive orthopaedic brace 3D-printed by NTU researchers, Delsson and the Centre for Orthopaedics in Singapore have developed a singular product, named X-Brace, which seems much like the smooth knee brace utilized by Batman within the film, The Darkish Knight Rises. It weighs about 720 grams, 30 % lighter than the standard steel orthopaedic braces that weigh over 1 kg.
Supported by the Nationwide Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC), a nationwide platform initiative led by NTU’s innovation and enterprise firm NTUitive, this joint analysis mission showcases how Singapore’s sturdy R&D capabilities can rework typical merchandise and strengthen the competitiveness of our native firms.
The prototyping course of and product design iterations utilizing additive manufacturing have been performed at NTU’s Singapore Centre for 3D Printing, certainly one of NAMIC’s College Hubs that helps mission R&D and translation. The mission funding has been supported by NAMIC’s Speedy Idea Funding scheme.
NTU Assistant Professor Chan Wai Lee, the principal investigator of this mission from the College of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, mentioned 3D-modelling was closely used to validate the assorted design concepts that led to the burden discount.
Mr Joel Lim, an NTU PhD scholar in Asst Prof Chan’s crew, led the design efforts in dialogue with Delsson and 3D-printed the prototype for real-life validation exams.
“Light-weight and energy are essential to this mission. We first analysed the standard knee braces and their present invoice of fabric. We determined to alter to a plastic materials with optimised construction. Utilizing topology optimisation with a delineated stress map and 3D modelling, we then designed new constructions and joints which are sturdy sufficient to face up to the flex of the knee and nonetheless help it to maneuver within the right route,” defined Mr Lim.
Mr Fabian Ong, Govt Director of Delsson Singapore, mentioned the X-Brace is ready to alter the best way docs and physiotherapists deal with and handle completely different knee circumstances, on condition that the quantity of help given by the brace can now be customised, from 6 kg to 32 kg of drive.
“X-Brace will likely be revolutionary for affected person restoration. It’s mild weight and doesn’t slip, whereas its modular help load permits affected person restoration to be individualised. NTU’s assist in offering a quantitative methodology to scale back wall thickness and profile of the body was essential in attaining the burden discount after a number of reiterations,” Mr Ong mentioned.
The joint crew labored to enhance model 7 of the X-Brace, which consists of a lightweight Nylon 6 body designed to help bending forces of as much as 50 kg concerning the axis of the knee. The product growth is now in its ninth model, designed to be even slimmer.
Dr Jeffery Chew, Chairman & CEO, Centre for Orthopaedics in Singapore, mentioned: “In my over 25 years’ of expertise practising orthopaedic surgical procedure, I’ve come throughout many sufferers with knee ache. Each younger and aged sufferers with knee issues usually have weakened muscle mass as they adapt their strolling fashion to scale back load bearing on the knee.
“The lives of sufferers with weak muscle mass proceed to be severely restricted by knee ache regardless of remedy. The X-Brace reduces the load on the knee, serving to sufferers to stroll with much less ache of their journey to finish restoration.”
Exoskeleton aids knee restoration for sufferers
X-Brace is designed to help in affected person restoration on the tempo that’s customized to the person.
Whereas the aim of a standard brace is to maintain the knee unflexed and limit the motion of the knee by stopping the person from bending the knee past a sure angle, the modular design of the exo-brace permits affected person restoration to be primarily based on exercising the knee after surgical procedure.
Since everybody recovers at a special tempo, the strain of the spring and the situation of the spring (left, proper, or each side) on the brace is set by the physician or physiotherapist to greatest present the wanted help, whereas permitting the affected person to get better at his or her personal tempo by each day motion.
Dr Ho Chaw Sing, Co-Founder and Managing Director of NAMIC mentioned, “With a fast-aging world inhabitants, lightweight assistive orthotics enabled by 3D printing – akin to customized knee braces, will more and more develop into a necessary device in geriatrics, to attain higher aged affected person care and outcomes.”
The X-Brace is predicted to be accessible available in the market now at a worth of SGD$1,000 (US$782) relying on the person’s required configuration. The product is distributed by Wearable Kinetics, a subsidiary firm of Delsson.
The Centre for Orthopaedics is at present the only real medical clinic that’s skilled to look at and prescribe the usage of the X-Brace. Extra centres will likely be skilled once they enroll with Wearable Kinetics to be licensed.
events might contact Wearable Kinetics at becertified@wekinetics.com or go to www.wekinetics.com.
[1] Why is osteoarthritis an age-related disease? (2010, February 1). ScienceDirect.
[1] Feeling the pain, a nation searches for relief. (2017, September 20). TODAYonline.
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Media contact:
Lester Kok
Assistant Director
Company Communications Workplace
Nanyang Technological College
Tel: +65 6790 6804
E-mail: lesterkok@ntu.edu.sg
About Nanyang Technological College, Singapore
A research-intensive public college, Nanyang Technological College, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate college students within the Engineering, Enterprise, Science, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and Graduate faculties. It additionally has a medical college, the Lee Kong Chian College of Medication, established collectively with Imperial Faculty London.
NTU can be house to world-renowned autonomous institutes – the Nationwide Institute of Training, S Rajaratnam College of Worldwide Research, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering – and numerous main analysis centres such because the Nanyang Surroundings & Water Analysis Institute (NEWRI) and Power Analysis Institute @ NTU (ERI@N).
Ranked amongst the world’s high universities by QS, NTU has additionally been named the world’s high younger college for the final seven years. The College’s important campus is incessantly listed among the many Prime 15 most lovely college campuses on the earth and it has 57 Inexperienced Mark-certified (equal to LEED-certified) constructing initiatives, of which 95% are licensed Inexperienced Mark Platinum. Other than its important campus, NTU additionally has a campus in Singapore’s healthcare district.
Underneath the NTU Sensible Campus imaginative and prescient, the College harnesses the facility of digital expertise and tech-enabled options to help higher studying and residing experiences, the invention of recent data, and the sustainability of assets.
For extra data, go to www.ntu.edu.sg
About Delsson Singapore Pte Ltd
Delsson is an SME that gives bonding options to market segments akin to Medical, Automotive, Telecommunications, Industrial and electronics. It has places in China, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Wearable Kinetics is Delsson’s try to enter medical product design and manufacture by collaboration with business consultants akin to Centre for Orthopaedics. In doing so, to offer artistic enhancements to recognized issues via design and engineering.
About NAMIC – Nationwide Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster
The Nationwide Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC) is a pan-national initiative led by NTUitive, supported by the Nationwide Analysis Basis below the Prime Minister’s Workplace, in partnership with Enterprise Singapore and Singapore Financial Growth Board. NAMIC goals to extend Singapore’s adoption of additive manufacturing applied sciences to boost its competitiveness within the quickly evolving panorama of digital industrialization. NAMIC focuses on promising AM applied sciences and corporations, in addition to accelerating translational R&D from public establishments with a deal with industrial industrial purposes. NAMIC additionally assists firms searching for capital injection both via mission joint-funding or its investor networks. Extra data will be discovered at https://namic.sg