Knee orthopaedic device how robotic technology can improve outcome in knee rehabilitation

Abstract

Following knee injury or surgery, knee rehabilitation therapy is an essential step to recover normal joint function for daily activities. Physical rehabilitation can take several weeks or even months until full range of motion and joint flexibility are regained. Knee rehabilitation will lead to satisfactory results only at the condition that exercises are performed regularly. An important part in knee rehabilitation is the patellar mobilization which is nowadays performed manually by the physical therapist. This paper presents a new approach for assisting patellar mobilization during knee rehabilitation programs. The use of a robotic device for physiotherapy allows to perform exercises on a regular basis during the whole recovery period and to quantify therapy progress. The physical therapist creates a personalized training protocol depending on the patient's pathology and supervises the training program at the clinic. After several days at the clinics, the patient usually returns back home. Using the robotic device, she or he repeats predefined training sequences over several weeks. The device provides immediate feedback to the patient and the therapist. This feedback also helps the therapist to assess training progress when the patient comes to the therapy center for control sessions. Functional tests in clinics have shown that the use of an automated device for knee therapy increases the patient's motivation and supports the physical therapist in adjusting training programs for optimal joint recovery.

Advanced rehabilitation technology in orthopaedics—a narrative review

“…Koller-Hodac et al introduced a robot-assisted knee device that can be used at home to acquire a full ROM and joint flexibility after knee surgery [1]. A narrative review by Sicuri et al suggested that it was reasonable to consider robotic rehabilitation of the shoulder for instability, stiffness, joint replacement, rotator cuff tear or other tendon ruptures [36].…”

“…With an ageing population, the number of patients affected by orthopaedic conditions that either require rehabilitation alone or surgical intervention and subsequent rehabilitation are on the rise [1,2]. As the demand for rehabilitation increases, advanced rehabilitation technology has also developed, but its role and efficacy are not always appreciated by surgeons or therapists.…”

Design of a Parallel Mechanism for Knee Rehabilitation

“…The University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil, Switzerland [1], proposes an automatic device that performs therapy exercises and record of progress. Others works propose alternatives to mimic the physiotherapist intervention as the "Knee rehabilitation using an intelligent robotic system" [2] that propose a rule based intelligent control and Therapeutic Exercise Machine (TEM) [3], which memorizes movements, guided by the therapist, and reproduces them afterwards.…”

Effect of sedation anesthesia on kinesiophobia and early outcomes after total knee arthroplasty

“…3 Postoperative (PO) pain control, mobilization and physical therapies are the milestones of successful surgical outcomes. 4 However, some patients may report displeasure due to discordance with physical therapy and chronic pain. 5 It has been reported that psychological factors, such as pain catastrophizing and kinesiophobia, strongly influence pain perceptions and responses to physical activity, 6,7 which can lead to illness behaviour and subsequent disability characterized by poor cognitive and physical performance, such as disuse syndrome, anxiety, depression and decreased physical function, thus creating a vicious circle of pain and disability after musculoskeletal injury or surgery.…”