GB2210856A - Wheelchair hoist - Google Patents

Abstract

A hoist, for a wheelchair eg to allow it to be stored against a door of a motor vehicle, comprises lifting means in association with guiding means eg mounted to the inside of the door. The lifting means includes a notched plate 50 for receiving a headed stud 52 projecting from a side frame assembly 14 of the wheelchair, the notched plate 50 being reciprocable along a slot 58 under the control of electric motor 60 to lift or lower the wheelchair. The guiding means includes a channel 46 formed in a housing for mounting the drive for the notched plate 50, a rear wheel 10 of the wheelchair W rolling up or down the channel 46 and being guided by the channel 46 as the wheelchair is lifted or lowered. To facilitate collapse of the wheelchair, its foot rest assemblies (20, Fig. 1) are themselves collapsible in the planes of the side frame assemblies (14) by the provision of hinges (30). <IMAGE>

Description

REMPLOY LIMITED MOTOR VEHICLE ADAPTED FOR DISABLED PERSON The present invention relates generally to a motor vehicle adapted for use by a disabled person normally confined to a wheelchair.

More specifically, but without being restricted to such an application, the present invention is of especial value as an improvement of the invention disclosed in our granted European patent (UK) no: 0,081,944, which claims a motor vehicle including a seat movable from a normal position within the vehicle to a displaced position projecting laterally outwardly of the vehicle, characterised by storage means on the inside of the door adjacent said seat for retaining a folded wheelchair between said door and said seat.

A significant advantage of such a motor vehicle is that it can be an adaptation of a general-purpose standard production private passenger car in which the adaptation is not immediately obvious, thereby enabling the disabled driver and/or the passenger the benefits of economy, comfort, ease of operation, reliability an & sense of equality with other road users.

The storage means on the inside of the door had preferably been provided by a recess within the door, conveniently circular, to receive a rear wheel of the wheelchair, together with retaining means for reacting between the door and the wheelchair to retain the wheelchair against the door. A lifting member could be located on the inside of the door and be operable to raise the folded or collapsed wheelchair from the ground into the storage position. The lifting member had preferably been provided by an arm with one end pivoted about a substantially horizontal axis on the door and the other end shaped to carry the wheelchair.

In a particular example, the wheelchair was formed with a plate having a hole there through at the point of balance, on the top of the main frame of the wheelchair, and through the hole could be passed a spigot formed at said other end of the lifting arm. The wheelchair was thus free to swing forwards and backwards parallel to the door about the spigot at the point of balance as the wheelchair was being raised or lowered.

In the same particular example, the retaining means on the inside of the door was formed as a plurality of cammed tongues located in the recess for automatically catching the adjacent rear wheel of the wheelchair as the wheelchair reached the top of its journey. The tongues then guided said wheel into said recess, the wheelchair as a whole was thus pulled along the spigot towards the door at the top of the raising operation. During the maJor part of the raising operation, however, the wheelchair was free to swing forwards and backwards as previously described without any guidance at all.

At least partly as a result of this lack of control, it was in practice essential for the wheelchair to be collapsed, before it was lifted.

According to one aspect of the present invention, a hoist for use in lifting a wheelchair, particularly for allowing the wheelchair to be stored against a door of a motor vehicle, comprises lifting means in association with guiding means for guiding a wheel of the wheelchair as the wheelchair is lifted.

The guiding means may resist forwards and backwards swinging of the wheelchair by being located such that a rear wheel of the wheelchair can roll up or down the guiding means during operation of the lifting means.

The guiding means could be formed merely as a flat surface, preferably extending in a plane substantially perpendicular to the plane of the door of the motor vehicle, but preferably the guiding means is formed as a surface of channel outline for resisting escape of the rear wheel therefrom.

The lifting means may be of electro-mechanical construction, and may include an electric motor which is driven from the motor vehicle battery and itself drives a screw thread on which a nut is mounted for movement only axially of the screw thread, the nut being secured to a member for releasable lifting engagement with the wheelchair.

In a particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention, the screw thread and the nut are mounted internally of an elongate housing which externally presents the channel for guiding the rear wheel of the wheelchair.

The housing may be a metal extrusion and may define a central space of generally rectangular crosssection for receiving the screw thread and the nut, a first substantially flat wall for mounting against the door of the motor vehicle, a second wall opposite said first wall and having a slot therethrough for allowing the wheelchair lifting member to project therethrough, and third and fourth walls extending between said first and second walls with one of said third and fourth walls having side flanges to define therewith the channel, along which the rear wheel of the wheelchair is to roll.

The upper and lower ends of the central space may be closed to protect the screw thread from causing injury and being itself damaged. The slot may be closed by a brush whose bristles are resiliently deflected as the wheelchair lifting member is raised and lowered along the slot. The electric motor may be mounted in the channel to save space and be less obtrusive visually.

The nut may be non-rotatably mounted within the central space by a tongue and groove connection to make frictional sliding engagement with one or more of the four walls as the screw thread is rotated either clockwise or anti-clockwise. The frictional engagement between the nut and the screw thread may be minimised by the use of ball bearings. The metal extrusion may be mounted to the door of the motor vehicle by bolts so that there is little if any obstruction to opening a window in the door by an existing window opening mechanism.

The wheelchair lifting member preferably includes a plate secured at one end of a stud whose other end is secured to the nut.

The plate could lie in a plane substantially parallel to that of the door of the motor vehicle. An upper edge of the plate could include a notch to allow simple engagement with a projecting part of the wheelchair as the plate is raised from below the projection. Camped surfaces could be provided on at least one side of the notch to facilitate this automatic location of the plate with the projection. Continued turning of the screw thread, in the sense causing the nut and the plate to be raised, will cause the wheelchair to be lifted from the ground and will simultaneously cause the rear wheel of the wheelchair to roll up the channel.

Some resistance to the wheelchair falling out of its engagement with the notch in the plate may be provided by the side flanges of the channel, especially if the channel is particularly deep. Preferably, however, the projection itself includes an enlarged head at one end of a stud whose other end projects from a frame part of the wheelchair. The transverse dimension of the head may be greater than the transverse dimension of the notch so that, during lifting of the wheelchair, the plate is sandwiched between the frame part of the wheelchair and the head of the projecting part of the wheelchair.

The headed stud constituting the projecting part of the wheelchair may form part of an arrangement whereby an arm rest is detachably securable to the frame part of the wheelchair.

In the particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention, the housing is not mounted to extend substantially vertically of the door of the motor vehicle, but at an angle such that not only does the guiding means act as supplementary support means, but the available space for storage can be more easily reached.

A consideration of the desirability of collapsing the wheelchair to an extent such that it matches the available storage space has lead to another aspect of the present invention, in which a wheelchair comprises a foot rest assembly which is secured to a side frame assembly in a manner permitting pivotal movement of the foot - rest assembly in the plane of the side frame assembly, the arrangement preferably being such that upper parts of the foot rest assembly are hinged together and lower parts of the foot rest assembly are linked together.

A hoist and a wheelchair, in accordance with both aspects of the present invention, will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the expected application of storing the wheelchair against a door of a motor vehicle, as shown in the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a perspective view of the wheelchair when collapsed and the hoist when mounted on the door of the motor vehicle; and Figures 2 and 3 are respectively front and plan schematic views of the hoist also indicating parts of the wheelchair.

The reader is advised to refer to our European patent (UK) no: 0,081,944 for a full discussion of a motor vehicle adapted for use by a disabled person normally confined to a wheelchair, the following being restricted to a discussion of the differences therefrom exhibited by the hoist and the wheelchair of the present invention.

Referring initially to Figure 1, a wheelchair W is shown mounted on a hoist H which is itself mounted on a motor vehicle door D.

The wheelchair W is shown with a single rear wheel 10, the other rear wheel having been removed in a manner known per se. The rear wheel 10 is secured to a collapsible frame 12 including a pair of side frame assemblies 14 which carry, inter alia, a pair of front castors 16 and a flexible chair seat 18. A pair of foot rest assemblies 20 are pivotally connected to the pair of side frame assemblies 14. Each pivotal connection may be in the form of a pair of apertured discs 22 carried by a foot rest upright 24 and rotatable about a pair of pinned discs 26 carried by a side frame upright 28. The reverse and other arrangements would be possible for allowing the foot rest assemblies 20 to be swung through 1800 to lie flat against the side frame assemblies 14.

The foot rest assemblies 20 are themselves collapsible, whilst remaining in the planes of the side frame assemblies 14, by hinging the upper part of each foot rest upright 24 by a hinge 30 to the upper part of a respective foot rest support 32. Lower parts of the foot rest upright 24 and the foot rest support 32 may be linked together by a respective pair of pivotal links 34,36. The links 34 may carry handles 38 for ease of operation. The foot rest assemblies 20 may also have pivotal foot rests 40 in a manner known per se.

Little is seen of the hoist H in Figure 1 apart from the fact that it is mounted at an angle, being in abutment with the adjacent rear wheel 10 and being overlapped by the front castors 16.

With reference to the simplified front view of Figure 2, however, it can be seen that the rear wheel 10 has a tyre 42 whose periphery is in rolling abutment with the base 44 of a channel 46 formed along one side wall of a housing 48. The rear wheel 10 rolls up and down the channel 46 under the control of a plate 50 which is releasably engageable with a headed stud 52 projecting from one of the side frame assemblies 14. The plate 50 includes a notch 54 approached via a cammed surface 56, and the plate 50 is reciprocable along the length of slot 58 under the control of electric motor 60. Operation of suitable switches causes the electric motor 60 to drive, possibly by means of a belt, a screw thread 62 shown in the simplified plan view of Figure 3.

The screw thread 62 is located within a central space 64 formed through an aluminium extrusion 66 constituting a housing. A first wall 68 is to be mounted on the door of the motor vehicle. A second wall 70 of the housing 66 includes a slot 72 which is closed by a brush 74 but nevertheless allows a stud 76 secured to the plate 50 to be reciprocably movable therealong. The stud 76 is also secured to a nut 78 which is non-rotatably mounted for movement axially along the screw thread 62.

Third and fourth walls 80,82 of the housing 66 extend between the first and second walls 68,70 with the third wall 80 including a pair of side flanges 84,86 which together with the third wall 80 constitute the channel 46. As shown particularly clearly in Figure 3, which has been drawn to indicate the angle at which the housing 66 is mounted, the tyre 42 can roll along the base 44 of the channel 46, whilst a hand wheel 88 secured to the rear wheel 10 lies closely adjacent to the door D.

The wheelchair W can be lifted by the hoist H without first having been collapsed, leading to advantages of manoeuvrability and thus convenience.

Claims (12)

1. A hoist for use in lifting a wheelchair, particularly for allowing the wheelchair to be stored against a door of a motor vehicle, comprising lifting means in association with guiding means for guiding a wheel of the wheelchair as the wheelchair is lifted.

2. A hoist according to claim 1, in which the guiding means is formed such that a rear wheel of the wheelchair can roll up or down the guiding means during operation of the lifting means.

3. A hoist according to claim 1 or claim 2, in which the guiding means is formed as a surface of channel outline for resisting escape of a rear wheel of the wheelchair therefrom.

4. A hoist according to any preceding claim, in which the lifting means is of electro-mechanical construction, and includes an electric motor which drives a screw thread on which a nut is mounted for movement only axially of the screw thread, the nut being secured to a member for releasable lifting engagement with the wheelchair.

5. A hoist according to claim 3 and claim 4, in which the screw thread and the nut are mounted internally of an elongate slotted housing which externally presents the surface of channel outline for guiding the rear wheel of the wheelchair.

6. A hoist according to claim 5, in which the slot is closed by a brush whose bristles are resiliently deflected as the wheelchair lifting member is raised and lowered along the slot.

7. A hoist according to claim 5 or claim 6, in which the wheelchair lifting member includes a plate secured at one end of a stud whose other end is secured to the nut.

8. A hoist according to claim 7, in which an upper edge of the plate includes a notch to allow simple engagement with a projecting part of the wheelchair as the plate is raised from below the projecting part.

9. A hoist according to any preceding claim in combination with a wheelchair and a motor vehicle.

10. A wheelchair comprising a foot rest assembly which is secured to a side frame assembly in a manner permitting pivotal movement of the foot rest assembly in the plane of the side frame assembly.

11. A wheelchair according to claim 10, in which upper parts of the foot rest assembly are hinged together and lower parts of the foot rest assembly are linked together.

12. A hoist and/or a wheelchair substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.