Trends in rehabilitation robotics

Abstract

Recent advances in rehabilitation procedures, methodologies and tools tend to include more and more the cognitive aspects of motor control. With the exploitation of new technologies for brain imaging, it is also possible to 'close the loop' from brain to action. In this multidisciplinary field, robotics gets a relevant role, which can be fruitfully employed in the rehabilitation of neuromotor functions and motor capabilities, by providing tools that are by nature flexible and programmable and that allow to set and assess procedures quantitatively.Furthermore, rehabilitation robotic systems are:-patient-specific, because they can easily optimize the degree of involvement of the patient by customizing the level of physical and/or cognitive assistance provided during each therapeutic session. -self-motivating, because they can give direct quantitative feedback to the patient about her/his performance during and after the therapy, thus enhancing motivation and self-appraisal of the value of the proposed exercises. -prone to telemedicine application, since many of them can be used at home, or in other locations outside the rehabilitation hospital, under remote supervision and/or tele-controlled by a therapist\physician.Robotic tools also have been proposed and applied not only for motor rehabilitation but also to improve the treatment of cognitive disorders, e.g., to support the psychological enrichment of the elderly.This Special Issue is related to the workshop 'Future trends in Rehabilitation Robotics' organized within the framework of the IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, 2010 whose main objective was to provide an overview of the most recent advances in rehabilitation robotics and to explore new directions in the field, focusing particularly on cognitive aspects of motor control.The articles in this special issue can be classified in three reviews and nine original papers. The reviews address some relevant topics related with the rehabilitation robotics research field: overview of upper-limb rehabilitation devices, different approaches to neurorobotic and hybrid management of lower limb motor disorders and a review about the assessment of the effectiveness of robot-facilitated neurorehabilitation for relearning motor skills. Moreover, the original papers cover a wide range of relevant topics like: virtual rehabilitation, rehabilitation robotic devices to train activities of daily living, electrical stimulation, assessment of upper-limb motor control in robotaided rehabilitation, new assistance algorithms based on adaptative oscillators, upper-limb rehabilitation devices based on pneumatic technology, bilateral robot-mediated therapy and assistive robotic devices for elderly people and for children with special needs.Classical devices for upper-limb rehabilitation clinical research, like ARMin [8], and many others are revised on Rui Loureiro et al. [15]. Tables in this work give a present update of the well-known devices. The paper overviews the current state-of-the-art on...

Hand exoskeleton for rehabilitation therapies with integrated optical force sensor

“…For example, a rehabilitation-aimed exoskeleton needs to be fairly backdrivable and allows a wide range of movement, so it is flexible enough to perform different rehabilitation exercises. 2 In contrast, an assistance exoskeleton must be stiff enough to ensure a firm grasping of objects present during activities of daily living and can sacrifice flexibility of movement in favor of predefined grasping patterns.…”

A Comparative Analysis of 2D and 3D Tasks for Virtual Reality Therapies Based on Robotic-Assisted Neurorehabilitation for Post-stroke Patients

“…Several studies suggest that the robotic technology can be used to improve the quality and the evaluation in the neurological rehabilitation (Garcia et al, 2011), enhancing the productivity and reducing costs in that field. Recent developments in robotic technology can help to perform a most objective and reliable analysis of the therapies that are applied to the patients with neurological injuries (Badesa et al, 2012, 2014a,c).…”

Evaluating the Child–Robot Interaction of the NAOTherapist Platform in Pediatric Rehabilitation

“…There are also robotic platforms that aim to rehabilitate an affected limb by carrying out movements with a controlled resistance [4,23] and others combine virtual games with remote control techniques for the same purpose [37]. Robot-Mediated Therapy (RMT) devices are available for children which "wears" the patient's body driving their joints during the rehabilitation process [6,18,31].…”