Hacker News Reader

Comment by freejack | Hacker News Reader

My son has cerebral palsy and I can see the immediate benefit that a machine like this would bring to him. We are currently using a similar harness on a regular treadmill, but this therapy doesn't help him learn that he needs to raise his feet and move them in a circular motion forward and then set them down again - seeing how the machine handles this using the same idea as an elliptical trainer immediately opened my eyes to the deficiencies in the approach we're using in the modern clinic we're attending. I would love to be able to help fund the development and manufacture of these devices in some way.

View on HN

This is the website of the "Estimulador de marcha" were you can find all the information about the project. You can also find the inventor email address, if you want to be in contact with him.

http://www.estimuladordemarcha.com.ar/

Great find! Awesome. Thanks very much!!

You can always use kickstarter.com to fund projects like this one.

At the moment only US residents can create projects on Kickstarter. It's going to be awesome when they expand to other countries.

Someone could do it on his behalf, no?

There is also indiegogo.com which I believe is available to anybody in the world.

Most countries have their crowdfunding counterparts. There are two in Argentina:

http://bananacash.com.ar

http://proyectanos.com

What would he offer to healthy backers?

For what it's worth, his machine looks a lot like an elliptical trainer found and most gyms these days.

That was my first thought. I'm sure a few of us would pitch in and see if we can hack one of these together for freejack!

I'd love one :-) but there are tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of kids that could benefit from devices like these. I have no medical training, but the benefits seem obvious. Someone with some ambition would do well to track down the man that invented this and figure out a way to commercialize them. Physiotherapists are buying treadmills right now - I can't imagine that it would take much to validate these as a replacement.

I was thinking the same thing, but a regular trainer has a much longer range of motion than a child can take advantage of. His looked much more kid friendly. I'm going to relatives in a few weeks and they have an elliptical trainer - I'm going to try Rowan out on it, and it if looks helpful, modding one to get rid of the handles and building a tripod would seem pretty straightforward.

It also seems to me that the distance between the feet is rather large on the ellipticals I've seen, at least for a child's hip width. I assume this is due to the large flywheel or fan used for resistance. I think the one in the video had a pretty narrow gap between the feet, probably at least partly due to a simple, narrow flywheel, since his isn't for resistance training.

I immediately started thinking about how one could use 2x4's and plywood flywheels, along with some steel rods and clamps, to mock up an experimental elliptical machine for sizing. A more permanent version should be fairly easy to make with off-the-shelf components, and some welded steel stock.

Interesting problem!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com