Medical and Healthcare Industry

Cooper Instruments offers load cells for a variety of medical applications where there is a need to measure force. We offer many products for medical use, including some with internal overload protection to protect against accidental shock loads. The model LFS 270 and LFS 242 are two such popular products. The overload protection is provided without the use of any moving parts or adjustments. Other load cells used in medical applications include the LPM 510, LPM 512, LPM 530 and LQB 630. All of these products have a small size configuration but a wide choice of force ranges. Cooper Instruments also offers an ergonomics testing kit to perform a wide array of ergonomic studies, such as MK series.

The following are just a few examples of medical applications.

  • Fitness and Rehabilitation Equipment
  • Patient Weighing
  • Robotic surgical systems using torque and load cells
  • Systems for testing prosthetics
  • Medical test machines
  • Submersible testing
  • Testing of axial and torsion loads on ligaments
  • Bite Force
  • Suture testing
  • Ergonomics Testing
Bite Force for Dementia Study

Sample Medical Application

Bite Force for Dementia Study
Cooper Instrument’s Load Button Load Cells are unique and separate themselves from most Load Buttons in the industry, known for their high accuracy. Our Load Button series carries an extensive line of load cell sizes including a line of miniature Load Button Load Cells. Load buttons may be used for applications such as press or inline and compression applications. Our Load Buttons also offer a wide range of capacity capabilities ranging from 50lbs – 50,000lbs. With high accuracy, miniature sizes and a large capacity range, our Load Buttons are seen utilized in several applications. In our illustration below, the LPM 510 miniature Load Button Load Cell was used in a testing application by researchers at VU University in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Researchers used the Cooper Instruments LPM 510 to measure the bite force of senior citizens in a research project for dementia. A stainless steel probe was used for the front teeth. The LPM 510 was placed in the probe to measure the force of the bite and could also be placed in other probes in order to measure the force of molar teeth of the subject. The LPM 510 250lb. version was chosen due to its compact size and height making it a perfect candidate for this application.