HLPR chair: a novel patient transfer device

In this paper, we briefly describe the design of the Home Lift, Position and Rehabilitation (HLPR) Chair, invented at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory (MEL) under the Healthcare Mobility Project. The HLPR Chair was designed to provide independent patient mobility for indoor tasks, such as moving to and placing a person on a toilet or bed, and lift assistance for tasks, such as accessing kitchen or other tall shelves. These functionalities are currently out of reach of most wheelchair users. One of the design motivations of the HLPR Chair is to reduce back injury, typically an important issue in the care of this group. Static and dynamic stability tests of the HLPR Chair prototype were also recently completed and are also described here. The tests followed the appropriate and current wheelchair standards and provide suggestions for improvement to these standards. While the Healthcare Mobility Project has recently ended, stability test methods of a lift wheelchair, such as the HLPR Chair, potentially overlap into forklift standard stability test methods and could be useful to the manufacturing industry.