Impact of Co-creation Footwear Workshops on Older Women in Elderly Centers in Hong Kong

Background: The use of appropriate footwear could reduce the risk of falls among the geriatric population. However, the elderly are generally reluctant to accept new footwear designs particularly with the incorporation of fabrication materials and functional design features that are perceived to be less comfortable. Co-creation activities that encourage user involvement during the product design process and development can therefore address this issue and provide unique benefits and better value for users, increase acceptance, and even lead to positive perception as well as positive psychological impacts, thereby increasing the practical use of newly designed footwear. Objective: This study aims to investigate the impact of hands-on footwear workshops on perceived functionality of geriatric footwear for older women. Method: Footwear co-design workshops for older women were carried out in two elderly centers in Hong Kong. Twenty-one healthy females between 64 and 80 years old (mean: 71; SD: 4.2), were recruited. Subjects were invited to decorate the prescribed geriatric footwear prototype and discuss their ideas on footwear design in a group of three. They were surveyed after completing the footwear decoration. Main outcome measures: The perceptions of the subjects on the geriatric footwear and related design features were analysed. Results: The questionnaire survey shows positive results in the psychological value of the workshops for older women. The participants express high levels of satisfaction with the co-design process and a strong sense of achievement with the newly designed geriatric footwear. The acceptance and awareness of the functions of the footwear are greatly enhanced. Conclusions: The co-design approach has positive psychological impacts on the elderly and their acceptance of the final product. This approach also better meets the aesthetic needs of the users

The effect of support surface and footwear condition on postural sway and lower limb muscle action of the older women

Background: Diminished somatosensory function is a critical age-related change which is related to postural instability in the older population. Footwear is a cost-effective way to modulate the postural stability by altering sensorimotor inputs via mechanoreceptors on the plantar surface of the feet. Compared to insoles with indentions in the entire surface, we innovatively developed a textured insole with site-specific nodulous protrudous. This study thus aimed to investigate the immediate effect of the nodulous insole and supporting surface condition on static postural stability and lower limb muscle activation for healthy older women. Methods: This is a single-session study with repeated measurements. Twenty-three healthy older women stood on the firm (i.e., concrete floor) and foam surfaces with their eyes open in the three footwear conditions, namely barefoot, plain shoes and shoes with an innovative textured insole, for 30 seconds. Static postural sway and muscle activation of biceps femoris (BF), vastus lateralis (VL), tibialis anterior (TA), and lateral gastrocnemius (LG) of the dominant leg were measured during each testing condition. Results: Compared to a firm surface, standing on the foam could significantly increase the body sway and lower limb muscle activation (p<0.05). When standing on the foam, compared to barefoot, wearing footwear significantly decreased the VL and TA muscle activation and minimize the postural sway in medial-lateral and anterior-posterior direction, while the influence is larger for the shoes with nodulous insloe compared to the plain shoes. No significant differences between the footwear conditions for static stability and muscle activation were observed on firm surface condition. Conclusions:For older women, footwear could improve the postural stability in the unstable surface, particularly the footwear with nodulous insole, with the underlying mechanism as enhancing the mechanoreceptors on the plantar surface of the feet

Thermal Equations for Predicting Foot Skin Temperatur

Purpose: Studying the foot skin temperature of both the young and elderly is important for preventing foot diseases and improving thermal comfort and variability during gait. However, few studies have predicted the thermal conditions in footwear under different variables. The aim of this study is to therefore formulate thermal equations for both the young and elderly to predict their foot skin temperature under the variables of age, gender, activity level and various properties of different types of footwear. Methodology: A total of 80 participants between 20 and 85 years old are recruited in this study, including 40 younger subjects (mean: 23.0; SD: 4.05) and 40 elderly subjects (mean: 69.8; SD: 4.59). They are tasked to sit, walk and run in a conditioning chamber. Findings: Regression equations for predicting the foot skin temperature of the young and elderly people are formulated, with R squares of 0.513 and 0.350 respectively. The level of activity is the most important factor when predicting the foot skin temperature. The material properties of the footwear also show a significant impact on the foot skin temperature of the elderly. Value: The findings of this study provide the basis for better thermal comfort and help to facilitate the footwear design process

Modeling of Flexible Polyurethane Foam Shrinkage for Bra Cup Moulding Process Control

Nowadays, moulding technology has become a remarkable manufacturing process in the intimate apparel industry. Polyurethane (PU) foam sheets are used to mould three-dimensional (3D) seamless bra cups of various softness and shapes, which eliminate bulky seams and reduce production costs. However, it has been challenging to accurately and effectively control the moulding process and bra cup thickness. In this study, the theoretical mechanism of heat transfer and the thermal conductivity of PU foams are first examined. Experimental studies are carried out to investigate the changes in foam materials at various moulding conditions (viz., temperatures, and lengths of dwell time) in terms of surface morphology and thickness by using electron and optical microscopy. Based on the theoretical and experimental investigations of the thermal conductivity of the foam materials, empirical equations of shrinkage ratio and thermal conduction of foam materials were established. A regression model to predict flexible PU foam shrinkage during the bra cup moulding process was formulated by using the Levenberg-Marquardt method of nonlinear least squares algorithm and verified for accuracy. This study therefore provides an effective approach that optimizes control of the bra cup moulding process and assures the ultimate quality and thickness of moulded foam cups

Evaluation of Myoelectric Activity of Paraspinal Muscles in Adolescents with Idiopathic Scoliosis during Habitual Standing and Sitting

There is a number of research work in the literature that have applied sEMG biofeedback as an instrument for muscle rehabilitation. Therefore, sEMG is a good tool for this research work and is used to record the myoelectric activity in the paraspinal muscles of those with AIS during habitual standing and sitting. After the sEMG evaluation, the root-mean-square (RMS) sEMG values of the paraspinal muscles in the habitual postures reflect the spinal curvature situation of the PUMC Type Ia and IIc subjects. Both groups have a stronger average RMS sEMG value on the convex side of the affected muscle regions. Correction to posture as instructed by the physiotherapist has helped the subjects to achieve a more balanced RMS sEMG ratio in the trapezius and latissimus dorsi regions; the erector spinae in the thoracic region and/or erector spinae in the lumbar region. It is, therefore, considered that with regular practice of the suggested positions, those with AIS can use motor learning to achieve a more balanced posture. Consequently, the findings can be used in less intrusive early orthotic intervention and provision of care to those with AIS

Ultra-dense Motion Capture: An exploratory full-automatic approach for dense tracking of breast motion in 4D.

Understanding the dynamic deformation pattern and biomechanical properties of breasts is crucial in various fields, including designing ergonomic bras and customized prostheses, as well as in clinical practice. Previous studies have recorded and analyzed the dynamic behaviors of the breast surface using 4D scanning, which provides a sequence of 3D meshes during movement with high spatial and temporal resolutions. However, these studies are limited by the lack of robust and automated data processing methods which result in limited data coverage or error-prone analysis results. To address this issue, we identify revealing inter-frame dense correspondence as the core challenge towards conducting reliable and consistent analysis of the 4D scanning data. We proposed a fully-automatic approach named Ulta-dense Motion Capture (UdMC) using Thin-plate Spline (TPS) to augment the sparse landmarks recorded via motion capture (MoCap) as initial dense correspondence and then rectified it with a sophisticated post-alignment scheme. Two downstream tasks are demonstrated to validate its applicability: virtual landmark tracking and deformation intensity analysis. For evaluation, a dynamic 4D human breast anthropometric dataset DynaBreastLite was constructed. The results show that our approach can robustly capture the dynamic deformation characteristics of the breast surfaces, significantly outperforms baselines adapted from previous works in terms of accuracy, consistency, and efficiency. For 10 fps dataset, average error of 0.25 cm on control-landmarks and 0.33 cm on non-control (arbitrary) landmarks were achieved, with 17-70 times faster computation time. Evaluation was also carried out on 60 fps and 120 fps datasets, with consistent and large performance gaining being observed. The proposed method may contribute to advancing research in breast anthropometry, biomechanics, and ergonomics by enabling more accurate tracking of the breast surface deformation patterns and dynamic characteristics

Structures and properties of thermo-regulated knitted fabrics

377-383<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;font-family:Fd839219-Identity-H;mso-bidi-font-family:Fd839219-Identity-H">Microencapsulated n-octadecane was coated on the surface of cotton and cotton/polypropylene <span style="font-size:16.0pt; font-family:Fd639226-Identity-H;mso-bidi-font-family:Fd639226-Identity-H">(60:40) <span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Fd839219-Identity-H; mso-bidi-font-family:Fd839219-Identity-H">knitted fabrics to produce thermo-regulated textiles. The structures, morphologies, phase change properties, heat flux, softness and smoothness were studied using SEM, DSC, Thermo Lab II and Smart Hand Tester, etc. It is observed that the microcapsules are inserted into the loops and adhered on the surface of fibre. The thermo-regulated knitted fabrics absorb and release <span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Fd639226-Identity-H;mso-bidi-font-family: Fd639226-Identity-H">8-20 <span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family: Fd839219-Identity-H;mso-bidi-font-family:Fd839219-Identity-H">J/g of heat energy at approximately <span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Fd639226-Identity-H; mso-bidi-font-family:Fd639226-Identity-H">32°C <span style="font-size: 16.0pt;font-family:Fd839219-Identity-H;mso-bidi-font-family:Fd839219-Identity-H">and <span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Fd639226-Identity-H; mso-bidi-font-family:Fd639226-Identity-H">17°C <span style="font-size: 16.0pt;font-family:Fd839219-Identity-H;mso-bidi-font-family:Fd839219-Identity-H">respectively. The thermal conductivity of the coated fabric is found to be higher than that of the untreated fabric; however, the difference is smalI. The measured maximum heat absorption' rate of the coated fabric is also slightly higher than that of untreated fabric. The heat flux of the fabrics is contributed by three factors, namely cold textile touches the hot plate and absorbs heat; heat conducts from the hot plate to the cold plate; and phase change material absorbs heat when the fabric touches the hot plate. The heat flux of MicroPCMs coated fabric is significantly higher than that of the control. The softness and smoothness of the fabric decrease after coating; however, they get better after washing with water. </span