Physical Therapy Equipment

Vale Industrial Design was approached to help develop a piece of physical therapy equipment that is accessible for both wheelchair users and bed-bound patients. It will comprise of both a leg press unit and a cycle unit which can be interchanged whenever required. Both of these units have the ability to move the user’s joints, as well as provide resistance when the user is generating a force. It will be primarily targeted for home users with the vision of rolling out to hospitals and clinics in the future.

Customer Brief and Specification

• Must provide a resistance through the stepper or the cycle unit depending on which accessory is fitted

• The design must include the ability to be folded flat for storage and include wheels and tether points in order to replace current patient care equipment

• The frame must allow for a combination of activities such as

  • Hand cycling from a wheelchair

  • Leg cycling from a wheelchair

  • Leg press from bed position

  • Leg cycling from bed position

• The user must be able to control the resistance from either accessory through a basic interface such as a manual control

Concept Visualization - August 2025

Due to this product’s complexity and challenging requirement, the number of iterative sketches was high. Over the course of a few days, I generated a number of concept sketches for the adaptable frame, leg press and cycle unit.

An important consideration at this stage was the balance between a highly adaptive frame that was stiff enough to resist the high forces from a user on the machine, whilst maintaining the ability to fold flat for easy storage, all whilst remaining as light as possible.

The frame also had to be easily configurable into 1 of the 4 operating states (detailed above) without special tools or equipment.

Engineering Design - September 2025

The bulk of the design work is contained within this section of work. The main aspects tackled in this were:

• Determining the assumptions for design decisions

• Translating rough concept sketches into availble “off the shelf” or fabricated parts.

• Calculations, reasoning for material, stiffness and safety requirements on the frame

• Control system design

Every single design decision is being recorded in the design report and explained for future reference. This is critical, especially if the project temporarily put on hold. Having the reasoning recorded is invaluable.

The report contains the original customer brief and the scope that the project extends to, meaning it can be continually referred back to. Not only this, but a section of the report is dedicated to ideation for the next design iteration, supporting the continuous improvement ethos.

ONGOING - PLEASE NOTE THIS IS AN ONGOING PROJECT AND WILL BE UPDATED SOON!