Leapfrog Cerebral Palsy Walker
Leapfrog Cerebral Palsy Walker
Inventing Mechanical Transformations for Frequent and Independent Rehabilitation
Assistive walkers for children with Cerebral Palsy or Spina Bifida are often cumbersome to use, inconvenient for caregivers, and look ‘painful’. Leapfrog walker invents an elegant mechanical solution for these patients with its automatic transformation between sitting and standing modes. This eliminates the need for frequent, and exhausting transfers in and out of the walker for short breaks. This multi-award-winning innovation has been licensed out and developed as the Voyar Walker and is now undergoing clinical trials for various demographics.
Designer-Inventor Donn Koh
Licensed to Voyar Frog Walker, Xentiq
USA Patent No. 10,080,699
Site Voyar
Awards Braunprize Grand Winner 2007, Red Dot Award 2007, iF Concept Award 2008
Recognising the Reality of Caregiver Fatigue
Caring for the patients – especially at home – is physically exhausting. Caregivers need to repetitively transfer them in and out of their gait-trainers even for brief breaks in their walking practice. Therefore, patients are often left sedentary on couches instead practicing sufficiently.
Special credits to the expert advisers from CPAS and their user-trial participants
Lightening the Load with Automatic Transformation
In contrast, Leapfrog’s transformation between the various positions (i.e. sitting, standing and walking) takes place in an automatic way and responds to the intention and movement of the child. This eliminates the need for repetitive transfers and reduces the strain on caregivers, making it easier to comply with frequent walking exercises.
Positively Encouraging
Leapfrog’s mechanical transformation automatically follows the patient’s intention. Contrary to devices that lock them into corrective positions, this enables the patients to actively attempt standing without caregiver interference, assisted only with a partial load-support. This imparts a needed sense of achievement and independence, and makes rehabilitation positively motivating. The tuneable lifting support can also be gradually reduced according to the child’s progress.
Positively Attractive
Leapfrog reinterprets the mechanical and ‘painful’ look of rehabilitative contraptions with a product that appears to be caring and playful. This fun and approachable aesthetic helps child patients with social inclusion.
Creative process, prototyping, and user-testing snapshots below
