Design and Development of a System to Manually Fabricate Contoured Seats for Children with Disabilities

The benefits of using appropriate assistive technology (AT) have been widely recognized. In the developed world, AT is recommended by a well established network of health professionals. It is reasonable to suggest that medical insurance coverage for AT has been an important promoter of the ever-increasing availability of these devices. In less developed countries, AT is almost nonexistent due in part to the lack of private and government insurance coverage for these devices. This scarcity of AT affects individuals with disabilities of all ages, particularly children with developmental disabilities. For this group, lack of AT can result in severe muscular skeletal deformities that could have been prevented if the appropriate AT, like contoured seating systems, had been available to them. Although the benefits of contoured seating have been widely reported, acquiring contoured seats in less developed nations is very difficult, if at all possible. The aim of this project was to identify local materials and design and develop the tools and equipment needed to manually fabricate contoured seating systems. This project describes the selection process of commercially available foams to be used in the carving of contoured seating systems, together with the development of a manual foam carving machine. Results show that the carving machine and the commercially available foams can be used to manually fabricate contoured seating systems that provide proper support and comfort to children with disabilities.