Support Belt for Lifting, Walking and Transfering Patients

Hello to all!

We are Anat and Evgeny, Industrial Design students, at HIT institute; in, Holon, Israel

This is Bengy, a support belt we created for lifting, walking and transferring patients. The belt there are today are not satisfying enough. Not for the patients nor the physiotherapists. Bengy is a result of a course we took name Fixperts. Fixperts is a social movement with an open knowledge sharing platform (fixperts.org) .we're uploading the instructions for our belt in here for anyone who needs it and/or wants to make it on their won.

Good day and let the Force be with you.

Step 1: Tools You Need

Materials you’ll need:

100cmx100cm of Cordura fabric

very durable, water resistant & nice to look at

100cmx100cm of Acrylic pillow stuffing. just to make the belt a little bit softer. You can also use other synthetic fillers like foam & polyester.

100cmx100cm 1/2 cotton 1/2 lycra fabric. this one will touch your clothes and skin so you should choose a washable & durable fabric but also soft one.

130 cm of wide nylon strip

side squeeze plastic clips

nylon thread- for the sewing machine. The stitches should be very resisting. (they gonna lift a person..) standard treads will not do!

Step 2:

Making the belt-
1. Cutting to shape- cut the 2 fabrics and the pillow stuffing, using the pattern provided.

2. Sew the three together. Make sure the pillow stuffing is the middle one.

3. Use the wide nylon strip to frame the fabrics.

4. The strengthening strip- Stitch the wide nylon strip to the middle of the outside of the belt (the Cordura side). Make sure to leave the End of the strip unstitched- you’ll need it later to connect the clips.

5. Horizontal handles- we made 4 horizontal handles, 2 on the back of the belt and 2 on the sides. Each handle made out of 17cm of 5cm wide nylon strips. You should stitch the strips onto the strengthening strip from step 4.

To make the handles more comfortable for holding, fold the ends inside and sew them together.

6. Vertical handles- The same as the horizontal handles but vertical.... stitch them between the horizontal ones

7. Strips for the leg huggers- use wide strip to make the base for the 2 clips. They will connect the leg huggers to the belt. We stitched it in this shape- remember to leave extra strip for the clips.

8. Connecting the clips- put the wide buckle on the end of the strengthening strip (4). This one will open/close the belt.

Put 1 female clips on each end of the s(7). 4 in total. The other side of the clips, the male side, will be stitched on the leg huggers:

Making the leg huggers- we’ll show you how to make one. The second is a just the same.

1. Cutting to shape- Cut the 2 fabrics and the pillow stuffing, using the pattern we provided.

2. Sew the three together. Make sure the pillow stuffing is the middle one.

3. Use the ... wide nylon strip to frame the fabrics.

4. The strengthening strip- stitch the wide nylon strip to the middle of the outside of the hugger (the Cordura side). Make sure to leave the end of the strip unstitched- you’ll need it later to connect the clips.

5. Connecting the clips- Use 1 male clips (those who left from step 8) on each end of the strengthening strip. 2 for each hugger.

And Voila!

P.S We have YouTube video, if you wont to watch.

Link: