Rollator revised handles and single brake operation.
The Challenge
The client needed a rollator to give her more confidence when walking outside. She suffers with several conditions which limit her mobility. Significantly she has arthritis in both hands which limits her hand mobility and grip strength. A rollator with gutter arm supports and upright handles would be most suitable. However she couldn’t find one that was small and light enough for her to lift into the car. The machine she bought was lightweight but she couldn’t use the ‘conventional’ horizontal handles and brakes. She requested REMAP’s help to convert it to a suitable configuration.
The solution
Fortunately she had good advice from her mobility equipment supplier and had chosen a machine that lent itself to modification. The brakes and existing handle grips could be removed, leaving near horizontal tubes. The brakes cables ran externally to the frame – unlike many which are routed internally; very neat but can be tricky to modify. This was particularity important as she could only operate the brakes with her left hand, so it was necessary to arrange both brake shoes to be connected to one brake lever.
The conversion is shown in the images. A shaft was machined that locked with a cone mechanism inside the existing tubes. On the end of this a 3D printed mount for a new ‘vertical’ handle was made. The handle could be rotated in two planes before being locked into position. This allowed the most comfortable angle for the clients restricted hand movement.
One of the existing brake levers was fitted on the left and a commercial split cable was attached. This converted the single cable in the brake lever into two separate cables – one for each brake shoe. The use of the existing brake lever retained the dual function i.e. pull up for progressive braking and push down for brake lock. A pair of commercial arm rests where fitted, again using 3D printed adapters.
One further modification was needed to the brake shoes. The existing shoes were a hard plastic bearing down on a relatively hard tyre. There was not a lot of friction between the two parts and the brakes need a lot of force to be effective. The clients limited strength and the combination of one lever to operate both shoes meant they wouldn’t work for her. After consulting with fellow panel members this issue had been solved previously using ribbed rubber strips. New brake shoes where made and fitted with the same ribbed rubber strip to bear down on the tyre. These were much more effective and allowed the client to use the brakes successfully.
The benefit
The client was delighted with the result and confident using the modified machine. She could still load it into the back of her car albeit that it was a little larger with the new parts.
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