Rapid Prototyping Services Help a Quadriplegic Gain Back Independence

TriMech is fortunate to work with clients from Maine to Florida and out to Arkansas, offering a range of engineering solutions. This week’s client story showcases TriMech RP Services and the Stratasys Fortus 450mc assisted The Assistive Technology Program at the McGuire VA Medical Center to help a quadriplegic gain back independence.

Our client, the Assistive Technology Program at the McGuire VA Medical Center, specifically in the post-injury rehabilitation space, specializes in custom design assistive technology  devices for veterans after they have returned home from service. They design a variety of apparatuses ranging from custom grips and mechanisms for wheelchairs, to custom orthotics. We would like to take the opportunity to highlight one of their patients, Brenda Besos’, story and TriMech’s rapid prototyping services’ role in her journey.

Brenda Besos’ Story 

Brenda has a C5 complete spinal cord injury resulting in quadriplegia. This means she is paralyzed from the chest down. Losing the ability to do everyday things that we sometimes take for granted can be a tough roadblock. Fortunately, Brenda was able to use ingenuity and technology to help regain some independence by using a wrist splint and other 3D printed tools. Watch her video to see how she uses customized 3D printed parts to help her grip brushes in order to apply make-up:

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TriMech RP Services For Customized 3D Parts

“We were struggling with printing a part for a patient in Nylon; which is a challenging material. It was an easy process to call Adam and have a part in our hands very quickly.”

-Brian Burkhardt, McGuire VAMC

The clinical rehabilitation engineers at McGuire VA Medical Center had struggled with being able to print a part that provided a blend of the right strength and flexibility using their existing printers. Although they already have a Stratasys Dimension printer; as well as, a mix of other consumer grade solutions, they were not able to get a working product. After exhausting their material capabilities; they reached out our Additive Manufacturing team which determined that one of our Stratasys solutions would be the best fit. We were able to run several copies of the tool for Brenda using our Stratasys Fortus 450mc printer in Nylon 12; which combines strength with excellent fatigue properties, suitable for Brenda’s current usage .

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