Review on Design and Control Aspects of Robotic Shoulder Rehabilitation Orthoses

Abstract

Robotic rehabilitation devices are more frequently used for the physical therapy of people with upper limb weakness, which is the most common type of stroke-induced disability. Rehabilitation robots can provide customized, prolonged, intensive, and repetitive training sessions for patients with neurological impairments. In most cases, the robotic exoskeletons have to be aligned with the human joints and provide natural arm movements. This is a challenging task to achieve for one of the most biomechanically complex joints of human body, i.e., the shoulder. Therefore, specific considerations have been made in the development of various existing robotic shoulder rehabilitation orthoses. Different types of actuation, degrees of freedom (DOFs), and control strategies have been utilized for the development of these shoulder rehabilitation orthoses. This paper presents a comprehensive review of these shoulder rehabilitation orthoses. Recent advancements in the mechanism design, their advantages and disadvantages, overview of hardware, actuation system, and power transmission are discussed in detail with the emphasis on the assisted DOFs for shoulder motion. A brief overview of control techniques and clinical studies conducted with the developed robotic shoulder orthoses is also presented. Finally, current challenges and directions of future development for robotic shoulder rehabilitation orthoses are provided at the end of this paper.

State-of-the-Art Assistive Powered Upper Limb Exoskeletons for Elderly

“…Each of these types has its own benefits and drawbacks. The benefits and drawbacks of each type of actuation for exoskeletons are thoroughly described in the works [52][53][54][55]. The summary of advantages and drawbacks of 3 main actuation types is also presented in Table 2.…”

Upper limb rehabilitation using robotic exoskeleton systems: a systematic review

“…The elbow and wrist joints each have two degrees of freedom i-e elbow flexion/extension, forearm supination/pronation, wrist flexion/extension and wrist ulnar/radial deviation. Majority of the exoskeleton robots developed for upper limb provide actuation at only shoulder and elbow [16,25,34,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52]. Only a few devices provide additional actuation for the forearm, wrist and sternoclavicular joints [53].…”

“…The robotic systems used for upper limb rehabilitation can be studied based on their mechanical structure, control system, and clinical applications. The mechanical configuration [8,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]and control systems [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] have been reviewed previously. A detailed insight on various end effector based system and their application in stroke rehabilitation have also been carried out [37].…”

Design and Analysis of a Wearable Upper Limb Rehabilitation Robot with Characteristics of Tension Mechanism

“…The traditional methods of treatment, which are based on the therapist's clinical experience, have the problems of large staff consumption, long rehabilitation cycles, limited rehabilitation effects, and so on. The research and application of rehabilitation robot system is expected to alleviate the contradiction between supply and demand of rehabilitation medical resources effectively, and improve the quality of life of stroke patients [6,7].…”