Blood Flow Restriction exercise - bachelor's project
This project was about creating a compact device for blood flow restriction exercise(BFR), also called occlusion training.
Abstract
The purpose of the project was to develop a concept for a blood flow regulating system for use in occlusion training. The goal with occlusion training is to prevent flow of oxygenated blood to the muscles during exercise. This has been shown to have positive effect on both the cross sectional area and strength of the muscles in a relatively short period of time (≈ three weeks).
At the moment most of the equipment used for this sort of training is not developed for this specific purpose. This means that the systems currently used by researchers and clinicians as well as people of the general population who wish to benefit from the use of occlusion training will have to make due with systems that are not optimized and might not be fit for purpose. This report investigates the effects of occlusion training by looking at the relevant literature published on this subject in order to analyse the best way to develop the blood flow regulating system and to identify potential users of a finished product.
Trough out the report the technical solutions applied in the development the system concept are described and discussed. The end of the report explains how the technical solutions are put together into a prototype. The members of the group have tested the prototype in the laboratory. The results of these tests are discussed at the end of the report along with a general discussion of the functionality of the prototype.
Current BFR technology
KAATSU
It was first invented in Japan in the 1970's, where tons of research has already been done. In Japan, it is trademarked as KAATSU training and you must buy the equipment through the company and you must be a certified instructor to use it on others. The equipment uses very thin cuffs and they keep all technical specs very secret. They even have their own unit for the air pressure: "SKU" (Standard KAATSU Units).
Elastic bands
Rubber/textile bands are the cheap alternative to air pressure control systems. You are normally told to tighten the wraps to 7/10 in "pain factor". The problem is not knowing the exact pressure that is being exerted on the limb.
Other
A 15 ECTS bachelor's project about BFR was done by William K. Juul, Jakob H. Andersen and Claes C. Jakobsen, students in Welfare Technology in the spring of 2015.
For the full report, contact claescjakobsen@gmail.com
The project was followed up with a 5 ECTS elective course by the same 3 students in the spring of 2016. The project's aim was to further improve the control system with a better pump and valve and using more sophisticated control theory such as PID control and PWM to control flow rates.
