The Handy 1 was developed in 1987 by Mike Topping to assist an ll-year-old boy with cerebral palsy to eat unaided. The system is the most successful low-cost, commercially available robotic system in the world to date, 1 and is capable of assisting the most severely disabled with several everyday functions such as eating, drinking, washing, teeth-cleaning, shaving, and make-up application. This paper charts the development of the system, gives an overview of some individual Handy 1 studies, and also looks at the development of the robotic aid to independent living (RAIL) system funded by the European Commission BIOMED II program.
Stroke is a leading cause of disability in particular affecting older people. Although the causes of stroke are well known and it is possible to reduce these risks, there is a need to improve rehabilitation techniques. Early studies in the literature suggest that early intensive therapies can enhance patient"s recovery. According to physiotherapy literature, attention and motivation are key factors for motor relearning following stroke. Machine mediated therapy offers a great potential to improve the outcome of patients engaged on rehabilitation for upper limb motor impairment. Haptic Interfaces are a particular group of Robots that are attractive due to their ability to safely interact with humans. They can enhance traditional therapy tools, provide therapy "on demand" and can present accurate objective measurements of patient"s progression. Our recent studies suggest the use of tele-presence and VR-based systems can potentially motivate patients to exercise for longer periods of time. The creation of human-like trajectories is essential for retraining upper limb movements of patients that have lost manipulation functions following stroke. By coupling models for human arm movement with haptic interfaces and VR technology it is possible to create a new class of robot mediated neuro rehabilitation tools. This paper provides an overview on different approaches to robot mediated therapy and describes a system based on haptics and virtual reality visualisation techniques, where particular emphasis is given to different control strategies for interaction derived from minimum jerk theory and the aid of virtual and mixed reality based exercises.
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