ClipZip

In the United States alone, 6.6 million people over the age of 20 are stroke survivors (Mozaffarian et al., 2016). Many of these persons deal with some form of chronic motor dysfunction in one of their upper limbs (Hatem et al., 2016) making activities of daily living difficult to perform independently. Among this population, the ability to operate dressing closures, specifically zippers, has been shown to be particularly difficult. The most difficult step is fastening together the two halves of the zipper (Green et al., 2011). Many assistive devices and technologies have been developed to help these individuals, however the solutions require the purchase of new clothing, costly alterations, and some devices are not even effective. Therefore, there is a need to develop a solution that allows for patients to zipper their existing clothing through an attachment or tool that integrates with clothing seamlessly and allows users to complete the task independently and quickly. Our device improves the ability to, with one hand, bring the sides of the jacket together, maintain this proximal distance, and allow for threading of the insertion pin into the slider. Ultimately, we hope that our device will allow persons with impairments in upper limb coordination to wear their own clothes, zip them quickly and efficiently and, most importantly, allow them to regain some freedom and independence.

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