• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1243-1250
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to compare government guidelines and foreign guidelines related to furniture design for elderly. Future elderly will increasingly accustomed to the provisions of improved housing, education and welfare in comparison with our forebears. Also, there will be upgrading and different need for elderly furniture in our market. The results were as follows. The height of bed was based on the height of wheelchair seat, commonly. A adjustable bed was recommended for abled and disabled elderly. A pull-down shelf, drawer, empty space under chest, folding or sliding door in wardrobe and so on were recommended as a elderly furniture. It were good adjustable sink on human scale. There were need the empty space under sink for wheelchair users, one-touch or lever faucet, etc. There have given a little furniture design guidelines for elderly in Korea until now. But those guidelines haven't been considered enough human scale of elderly including wheelchair user. Because the close investigations have not made about abled and disabled elderly for their furniture design. So first of all, the government should be examined elderly physical size more accurately for elderly furniture design. The guideline for elderly furniture design should be for abled elderly and the disabled, too.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.161-167
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• 2016

Recent technological advances in sensor fabrication and bio-signal processing enabled non-constraint and non-intrusive measurement of human bio-signals. Especially, non-constraint measurement of ECG makes it available to estimate various human health parameters such as heart rate. Additionally, non-constraint ECG measurement of wheelchair user provides real-time health parameter information for emergency response. For accurate emergency response with low false alarm rate, it is necessary to discriminate quality levels of ECG measured using non-constraint approach. Health parameters acquired from low quality ECG results in inaccurate information. Thus, in this study, a machine learning based approach for three-class classification of ECG quality level is suggested. Three sensors are embedded in the back seat, chest belt, and handle of automatic wheelchair. For the two sensors embedded in back seat and chest belt, capacitively coupled electrodes were used. The accuracy of quality level classification was estimated using Monte Carlo cross validation. The proposed approach demonstrated accuracy of 94.01%, 95.57%, and 96.94% for each channel of three sensors. Furthermore, the implemented algorithm enables classification of user posture by detection of contacted electrodes. The accuracy for posture estimation was 94.57%. The proposed algorithm will contribute to non-constraint and robust estimation of health parameter of wheelchair users.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.56 no.6 s.105
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• pp.58-71
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• 2006

This research is aimed to develop the functional clothing designs for disabled women in the manner of investigating design preferences among them by means of questionnaire and interview with 150 disabled women as respondents and interviewees. The findings of this research are summarized as follows: 1. Regarding satisfaction with ready-made clothes, the respondents answered 'very satisfied' (1.6%), 'usually satisfied' (14.1%), 'moderate' (20.3%) and 'unsatisfied' (53.1%), suggesting that they had been generally unsatisfied with ready-made clothes. 2. There were more disabled women preferring to ready-made clothes with one-grade bigger (loose.) size than the actual one (53.1%) instead of completely fitted size (43.8%) when they purchased such clothes. This result indicates that they prefer to ready-made clothes with bigger size than the actual one because most of such clothes are made up of non-elastic materials which may be unfavorable for wearer's activities. 3. It was found that primarily worn upper garment among them was T-shirt (59.4%). The reason may be that T-shirt is favorable for using prosthesis and orthotics such as wheelchair, walking stick and crutches thanks to its remarkably high activity as well as simple to maintain, compared with other kinds of upper garments. 4. Regarding preferences to functional clothing designs, the primarily worn lower garment among them was trousers (85.9%); the reason was easiness to move. The main reasons of avoiding to wear a skirt included 'difficult to move' (40.6%) and 'exposed disabled region' (30.3%). Accordingly, functional clothing for disabled women should be developed in consideration for their individual characteristics of disability associated with the disabled region such as wheelchair user, crutch user or brace user, In addition, the designs should be made so that they are not different from those for non-disabled people.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2015

In order for a Power Assisted Wheelchair (PAW) to maintain a straight driving direction, the same force must be delivered to both wheels. However, a human has different strength between the right and left arms, and cannot control the force uniformly at all times. Therefore, appropriate assist torque shall be generated from unbalanced human torque inputs by detecting the user intention, in order to maintain direction uniformly in straight sections or change direction quickly in curved sections. In this study, a special function is proposed to detect the intention of drivers on the basis of temporal similarity between the input torque signals, and a torque balancing technique based on this function is proposed. In the experiments, the effectiveness of the proposed torque balancing method are verified.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.79-87
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide logical basis on enlargement of toilet floor space for the disabled by "ACT ON GUARANTEE OF PROMOTION OF CONVENIENCE OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES, THE AGED, PREGNANT WOMEN. ETC" Revised Enforcement regulation [Asterisk 1] (2018.2.10.) and to help with making plans, designs and establishing policies by conducting experimental study with the enhanced floor area regulations. Methods: We conduct Experimental study, field work and interview for this paper. In experimental study, verification of the effective floor area was proceeded by measuring activity space for people in manual wheelchair, electric wheel chair and electric scooter and also reviewed useable area with the space expanded 0.2m both width and depth. In filed work, conducted an observation what other things (ex. sanitary equipment, hand rail and so on) can also affect the active space as well as effective floor space. In the interview, other problems and requirements that were not revealed were experimental study and observation of field work. Results : it's expected to provide better access to toilets for the disabled with the law revision of effective floor area. But, with the usage increasement of enlarged wheel chair and electric wheel chair, expanding side areas of toilet is also highly likely to be required going forward. Implications : Additional research is required on locations of exists and internal arrangement that effect the usage of toilet. It should be led to Universal design by making additional investigation and verification of the users patterns.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Therapy
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.73-84
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• 2018

Objective : The purpose of this study was to promote R&D of toilet design for the disabled by evaluating the Front-entry sitting toilet applied it to actual wheelchair users to examine the possibility of their application as a toilet that is low physical demanding and high satisfaction. Methods : Forty wheelchair users were asked to demonstrate using Front-entry sitting toilet after collecting the general characteristics and their current wheelchair usage information. Musculoskeletal disease risk assessment and user satisfaction were evaluated throughout Rapid Entire Body Assessment(REBA), Quebec Evaluation of Satisfaction with assistive Technology 2.0(QUEST) and subjective opinion questionnaire. Results : Statistical result showed that REBA scores($3.18{\pm}.38$) of Front-Entry Sitting Toilet were significantly lower(z=-5.930, p<.05) than the conventional toilet($6.53{\pm}1.15$). Overall, user satisfaction ratings were high with detailed scores were high in order of durability($4.48{\pm}.62$), safety($4.38{\pm}.63$), necessity($4.33{\pm}.73$) and universal ($4.6{\pm}.61$). Subjective opinion survey showed most were 'it was convenient to not have to rotate(30.8%).' Conclusion : This study found that Front-entry sitting toilet was highly likely to reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorders and users' satisfactions were high. Through this study, we hope to expand the scope of occupational therapists and contribute to the physical, mental and social health in the daily activities of the people by applying various approaches.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.31-38
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• 2020

Purpose: The ramp is an important facility for the barrier free access and vertical circulation of users of various buildings, including users of walker, wheelchair users, stroller users, and baggage carriers. The installation standards for ramps in Korea have various problems during construction and BF certification. It is necessary to improve the criteria for ensuring practical mobility and safety. Method: Korean standard, International Standard(ISO 21542, 2011), German Standard(DIN 18040-1, 2010), Austrian Standard(OENORM B 1600, 2017), Swiss Standard(Norm SIA 500, 2009), Canadian Standard(Building Standards Guide, 2017), American Standard(ADA Standards, 2010) were investigated and analyzed. A comprehensive improvement of the ramp installation standards is proposed. Results: The ramp is a necessary facility for the barrier free access and vertical circulation of the disabled. It shall be installed with comprehensive consideration of the appropriate slope of the ramp, the distance of the continuous slope, the handle and upstand for pedestrian safety. In order to improve convenience, setting the proper slope and limiting the length of the slope are very important, and improvements are required to the levels presented by international and foreign standards. The unclear standards of Korean law and BF certification standards should be clearly improved so as not to be misinterpreted in construction and Barrier Free Certification. Implication: International and foreign standards should be reviewed to ensure practical mobility and safety. And comprehensive improvement measures should be presented through continuous research.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics S
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• v.35S no.11
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• pp.75-87
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• 1998

KARES (KAIST Rehabilitation Engineering System) is the rehabilitation robot system in the type of the 6 degrees of freedom robot arm mounted on the wheelchair, in order to assist the independent livelihood of the disabled and the elderly. The interface device for programming and controlling of the robot arm is essential in the rehabilitation robotic system. Specially, in the case of the manual operation of the robot arm, the user has the burden of cognition and the difficulty for the operation of the robot arm. As a remedy, color vision system for the autonomous performance of jobs is proposed, and four basic desired jobs are specified. By mounting the camera in eye-in-hand type, color vision system for KARES is set up. The desired jobs for picking up the target and moving it to the user's face for drinking are successfully performed in real-time at the indoor environment.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.20-29
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• 2012

The study was intended to evaluate common spaces of office building in view point of universal design. The common spaces were access road, main entrance, parking lot, corridor, and restroom. Two office buildings in Centum city of Busan were evaluated by their workers, each 100 ones. The check list for evaluating them consisted of 36 universal design elements which related to five common spaces. First, there were many universal design elements which need to be improved. Second, among five common spaces, restroom has the most elements to be rated low. First of all, at least one restroom for wheelchair should be provided each floor. Third, even though both of two office buildings were recently built, there were significant difference between their users' evaluations. This implies that the concept of universal design is not applied to office buildings well. Fourth, there were significant difference among users' evaluations according to age, especially in case of design related elements. This means that users' age is an important factor to be considered.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.1541-1544
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• 1997

The rehailitation robot, one of the service robot, is the important area in the service automation. In the paper, we describe the overall configuration of KARES(KAIST Rehabilitation Engineering System), which is an intellingent rehabilitaion robotic system designed to assist the independent livelihood of the handicapped and the eldrly. KARES consists of the 6 degree of freedom robot arm mounted on a wheelchair, the controller ofr the arm, sensors to perceive environment, and user interface. Basic desired hobs in KARES are gripping the target object and moving it to the user's face for eating, drinking, or cooperation work wiht the mouth. Currently, the manual operation of the arm is available for gripping to target objects. The autonomous functionality will be ginven for the facilities of the human operator.