Due to adolescents’ poor core strength and immature lower-limb coordination strategies, there are around 100,000 cases of adolescent ACL injuries in China each year. An ACL injury refers to a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a ligament that plays a key role in controlling the knee joint’s torsion. With a similar return to sports rate after ACL reconstruction, adolescents’ secondary tear probability (in the recovered) takes up 32%, which is 4.9 times that of adults. Why is the rate of second ACL tears so high among teenagers?
Unlike most surgeries, ACLR requires 9 - 12 months of physical therapy. Whereas the first stage takes 6 weeks in bed with repetitive & painful exercise. This caused children to fear the process, and because of the slow recovery speed, they're unable to visualize their progress.
By designing with unique inflatable structures, we aim to utilize pneumatic wearables in a joyful way. We consider soft robotics as a feedback actuator that visualizes every step of the children's recovery process. The product was able to effectively demonstrate the movement of the origami animal to inflate and deflate, as well as to show changes in speed combined with different degrees of bending.
