Development of New Rehabilitation Device and Protocols

A multi-joint and multi-DOF whole arm rehabilitation robot with individual joint control

Arm impairments in patients post stroke involve the shoulder, elbow and wrist simultaneously with abnormal couplings between the joints and between the multiple degrees of freedom (DOF) at a joint. They may lose independent control of individual joints and coordination among the joints.  This project develops a whole arm intelligent rehabilitation robot capable of controlling the shoulder, elbow, and wrist individually in multi-DOFs and simultaneously while allowing trunk and scapular motions, with the integrated features of diagnosis, multi-joint, mulit-DOF intelligent stretching based on the diagnosis, voluntary movement training, and outcome evaluation.

An intelligent stretching device to treat spastic/contractured joints

A portable intelligent stretching device has been developed to treat the spastic/contractured ankle of neurologically impaired patients. Based on expertise of experienced clinicians and using sensors monitoring tissue/joint physical and physiological status quantitatively, the device stretches the ankle under intelligent control safely throughout the range of motion (ROM) to extreme dorsiflexion and plantarflexion. It knows how hard to stretch, how fast to stretch, and how long to hold the ankle at the extreme position to let stress relaxation occur. Furthermore, the device evaluates treatment outcome quantitatively in multiple aspects, including active and passive ROM, joint stiffness and viscous damping, and reflex excitability. The stretching resulted in considerable changes in joint passive and active ROM, stiffness, viscous damping, and reflex gain. The intelligent control, portability, and low cost of the device make it available to patients and therapists for more frequent use in clinics/home and allow effective treatment and long-term improvement.