Diseño y construcción de un dispositivo de asistencia para extremidades delanteras para un canino con carencia de movilidad

Abstract

Currently, the problems of malformation or amputation in animal limbs have been growing due to the fact that there are no prosthetic devices in the local market that cover this problem. In Ecuador, there has been very little acceptance of veterinary medical devices that replace a limb or provide assistance to an animal that requires it. This is due to the high costs required for the manufacture of an assistance device, for this reason people lose the desire to care for their pets and choose to sacrifice them or leave them abandoned. The technical project focused mainly on the design and construction of a wheelchairtype assistive device for a dog that has a malformation in its two front limbs, leaving it without the ability to move properly, so that a study of the alternatives of existing assistive devices was conducted and the main characteristics that a wheelchair should have so that the beneficiary dog can be coupled without any difficulty were verified; The use of 3D printing was implemented for the manufacture of the assistive device, where the percentage of filling, the printing material and the orientation in which an element must be printed to acquire excellent mechanical properties were evaluated. The result was a resistant, ergonomic and adaptable wheelchair. This wheelchair was evaluated and approved by a veterinarian through a technical data sheet.