Aaron Bouncer's Final Blog

Our project was to simulate the task of a nurse moving a patient from the bed to their wheelchair with a patient transfer device and to evaluate any types of stress or possible opportunities for musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) in Jack Simulation. One of our team members, Kiffinae Sanders, created a survey and created a task analysis to get a better picture of where and how strain is put on nurses when they operate a Hoyer lift.

We tested both the original patient transfer device aka Hoyer lift and the fluid powered patient transfer device to see if there would be any difference in lower back stress, task time and percentage capable.

Our end result was that the fluid power device was better when it came to lower back relief and time to complete task but it is a prototype and still needs some tweaking. All in all I believe we met our objective.

The only thing I wasn't able to complete was the Static Strength Prediction (SSP) for the fluid powered device so I was not able to get the percent capable with this task but with the other data we got I can say that our results show which machine is a better choice.

What I will take away from this experience is how much work and dedication you must have in order get any type of result whether it is good or bad. Its better to get something than nothing. I'll also take away the fun times I've had here.

And my advice for future REU students would be prepare to read because you will be reading....... a lot!
Anyway it was fun and I'm glad for the experience.

Test Bed 4 Presentation