Assistive Devices Market in India

Assisted Devices market in India needs upgradation: Abhit K - ET HealthWorld

Shahid Akhter, editor, ETHealthworld spoke to Abhit K, Co-founder, Social Hardware, Bengaluru to know more about the growth of Assisted Devices market and how it can help people in a big way.

Assisted Devices- trends and market
The assistive device market is growing exponentially and this is basically because of the growing population and employment. Employment leads to ignorance in the construction fields as well as in various industrial fields.

A lot of low income wage workers, who work at the construction sites are not fully skilled and due to that, many casualties or traumatic injuries happen. At the same time, we are seeing a lot of congenital diseases as well such as diabetes, which leads to amputation cases. We've also seen cases of cerebral palsy and various neural issues as well.

The assistive device market is growing specifically in India and also globally. We have 3D printable prosthetics, which is coming in and we also have crutches, highly defined wheelchairs,which people are using now.

All these products are slowly coming into the market to basically meet the needs of the people from different backgrounds of the requirements for the assistive devices and various companies are coming and making products which are affordable, durable and is fulfilling the requirements of people.

Assisted Devices challenges
There are not many localized fabrication of assistive devices in India and a lot of assistive devices are being imported from North American and European market, which generally costs a lot as compared to a locally designed product.

Due to that, the cost effectiveness is not there and it is expensive. People from different backgrounds are not able to afford it.

The second challenge is that the assistive device market in India has been traditionally operating. We are still operating on mechanically induced products, either it's a walking stick or a wheelchair.

These are all concepts, which has been derived previously in the 90s and 2000s era. Therefore, all these concepts needs an upgrade. There are also no manufacturing methods and techniques, which could counter those upgrades and this is one issue, which the assistive device market is specifically facing.

Avocado Wrist Connector ideation and collaboration
As a company, we wanted to have a durable product, which is easy to fit and comfortable to use. We wanted the aspects of durability, affordability and also wanted to democratize the prosthetics and this was the vision to develop Avocado Wrist Connector. It is a small mechanical adapter and mechanical device, which can easily be fit into traditional prosthetics as well as in modern prosthetics, providing an upgrade to a user who has been using both these prosthetics

In terms of mechanical prosthetic hand, it would enable a user to use a product and conserve more energy with the help of any format of tool and can use this Avocado Wrist Connector. The Avocado Wrist Connector would be helping in conserving the battery life of the product, which will enable him to sustain the electric powered prosthetic hand for a longer period of time.

It is not only providing an upgrade feature in terms of usability, but it's also an efficient and a
durable product. At the same time , it is cost effective and lightweight.

The name Avocado came through the inception where we are working with Association of People with Disabilities, who are very much involved in horticultures effects. We have met a lot of patients and amputees, who've been working in these agricultural fields and we wanted to give a texture of agriculture into it and the product, the wrist connector itself looks like an Avocado.

We wanted to make a product, which can be integrated in the existing prosthetic supply chain in India, where the maximum number of products have been manufactured by ALIMCO and they have been producing sockets for a long period of time. We have also partnered with rehabilitation centers across the country in order to make this Avocado Wrist Connector a reality and be used in real life by people across the country.

Similarly, we have Nevedac Prosthetic Center in Chandigarh, which also caters to the huge market in Punjab and Haryana.

We made a prototype of the Avocado Wrist Connector and it's a mass manufacturable prototype, which we made. However, it was weighing around 300 grams, so it was heavy. As per the standards for prosthetics, we wanted to make it more lightweight and wanted to make it below 100 grams.

This is where the idea and the future of generative design came in, where we were able to reduce the mass and material of the design through the generative design.

It is basically an AI based software, which allows you to input various design and load constraint. At the same time, it also provides you design alternatives, so that you can pick one any one of the design alternatives and then using your human and AI collaboration make the final product, which is manufacturable and product fit.

The five stage process of generative design could have taken us months, but using the generative design concept we were able to do everything within less than a week. This not only saves our time but also our cost.

Avocado Wrist Connector - future plans
Currently, we are doing market testing and we are doing the testing with the partnered rehabilitation centers as well, making our product more durable and efficient.

We are presently testing the Avocado Wrist Connector and we will be rolling out it through a partnered rehabilitation centers, who already have a network and branched out network with the district rehabilitation centers.

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Dr P Vyasamoorthy
30 Gruhalakshmi colony Secunderabad 500015
040-27846631 / 09490804278 / +918179386472

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