Unbounded Medicine

An aquatic wheelchair that helps people in rehabilitation process (i.e. amputations) was created by students of the National Polytechnical Institute, Berenice Nieto Ávila and Miguel Ángel Herrera Ruiz.

This amphibious technology allows physiotherapists to do their job in a better environment and with less risk. It offers comfort, security and efficiency for the patients.

The structure of this device was made of nickel, floaters of polystyrene covered with fabric nylon and a mechanism that allow the necessary movements so that the patient can enter the bathtubs or pools, with no need of aid.

“With this chair the patient can move by himself without fear to sink or to hurt himsellf”, Miguel Ángel Herrera emphasized.

The approximated weight of the chair within the water is of 15 kilograms (30 pounds approx) and supports a maximum weight of 150 kilos (300 pounds approx).

The creators will start a company dedicated to design, constructe and implement this kind of devices, focusing in rehabilitation techniques. At the moment they look for financing to commercialize their product and other innovations of rehabilitation field. The amphibious wheelchair obtained the first place of the Seventh Encounter of Entrepreneurs.

They are patients in a hospital, but they don’t suffer, because they are robotized models that allow students to learn without having the consequences of a real medical emergency.

It’s been a year since the beginning of the Certification and Training Center of Medical Aptitudes in the Medicine Faculty of the UNAM, 179 robots have served 19,496 students to solve urgencies: from acute coronary syndromes to high risk childbirth.

“If they don’t do it right, the patients will “die”, and this is reflected in a real EKG”, said doctor Jose Alberto García Aranda, coordinator of the CECAM.

An articulated prosthesis that reproduces the seven basic movements of the human arm, using the electrical impulses of the human body, was developed by a student of the National Polytechnic Institute (Instituto Politécnico Nacional).

Simón Guerrero Castillo, who in in December finished his Engineering in Communications and Electronics career, will obtain its title with this device, which is formed by three adaptable modules at different levels from amputation, is light and tries to be of low cost, because it is done with mexican and easy to obtain components.

“The arm works with microelectrical signals that generates the body, which are registered by a group of 22 to 26 electrodes that are placed in a customized shoulder reinforcement according to the stature of each patient. This electrodes switch-on the commands of execution of the arm to control variables like position, speed and pressure”, details Simón Guerrero, of 25 years.

He constructed this single prototype, in its house and with an investment of $18,000 pesos ($1,800 dlls.)

The movements of this device are very similar to the natural ones: wrist (left, right, up, down); turn of the forearm; rotation of the forearm; elbow and shoulder (elevation, up, down); opening and closing of the hand. These movements are made with nine small motors that operate with two nickel-cadmium batteries of 12 volts.

“My main motivation is to make a prosthesis that helps people in Mexico and that it has an accessible price, because unfortunately many arm amputations are suffered by people of low income that cannot pay a nice prosthesis”.

In order to install the arm to the patients surgery is not required.