[Abstract] A Home-based Tele-rehabilitation System with Enhanced Therapist-patient Remote Interaction: A Feasibility Study

Abstract:

As a promising alternative to hospital-based manual therapy, robot-assisted tele-rehabilitation therapy has shown significant benefits in reducing the therapist’s workload and accelerating the patient’s recovery process. However, existing telerobotic systems for rehabilitation face barriers to implementing appropriate therapy treatment due to the lack of effective therapist-patient interactive capabilities. In this paper, we develop a home-based tele-rehabilitation system that implements two alternative training methods, including a haptic-enabled guided training that allows the therapist to adjust the intensity of therapeutic movements provided by the rehabilitation device and a surface electromyography (sEMG)-based supervised training that explores remote assessment of the patient’s kinesthetic awareness. Preliminary experiments were conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed alternative training methods and evaluate the functionality of the developed tele-rehabilitation system. Results showed that the proposed tele-rehabilitation system enabled therapist-in-the-loop to dynamically adjust the rehabilitation intensity and provided more interactivity in therapist-patient remote interaction.

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[Abstract] Low-cost haptic glove for grasp precision improvement in Virtual Reality-Based Post-Stroke Hand Rehabilitation

Abstract:Stroke in Algeria is one of the most important causes of severe physical disability. Upper limb paralysis is also most common in stroke patients, which severely affecting their daily life. Therefore, it is important to help stroke patients to improve the quality of their life. In this article, we have proposed a novel system based on virtual reality for fine motor rehabilitation. Because the sense of touch is essential to the patient’s daily activities, we have integrated haptic feedback into our system (vibrating glove), this is to help the patient to perform rehabilitation exercises. The proposed vibrating glove is equipped with five small and flat vibrating motor discs (one on each finger); these motors are controlled by ESP8266 board. This system has been tested on two patients with stroke. The preliminary results show that the system can help patients recover fine motor skills.

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[Abstract] A Therapist Helping Hand for Walker-Assisted Gait Rehabilitation: A Pre-Clinical Assessment – IEEE Conference Publication

Abstract

Smart Walkers are robotic devices commonly used to improve physical stability and sensory support for people with lower limb weakness or cognitive impairments. Even though such devices offer continuous monitoring during physical rehabilitation, providing a tool to empower therapists might reduce their efforts and increase patient’s safety during gait therapies. The implementation of remote-operation strategies enable therapy managers to remote control and assess the smart walker and user information. In this context, this paper presents a new strategy to control and perceive a walker-assisted gait therapy, by means of a haptic joystick with three operational modes. A set of path following tasks were implemented to validate the operational modes. The kinematic estimation error was calculated, and it was found a decrease in the error, when feedback modes were used. Likewise, results from an usability and acceptance questionnaire show better participant’s understating of visual feedback mode, and higher effort perception under haptic feedback mode. This interaction strategy represents a potential joystick application as a safety and control interface in walker-assisted gait.

via A Therapist Helping Hand for Walker-Assisted Gait Rehabilitation: A Pre-Clinical Assessment – IEEE Conference Publication

[Abstract] An extended kinematic model for arm rehabilitation training and assessment

Abstract

In the rehabilitation training and assessment of upper limbs, the conventional kinematic model treats the arm as a serial manipulator and maps the rotations in the joint space to movements in the Cartesian space. While this model brings simplicity and convenience, and thus has been overwhelming used, its accuracy is limited, especially for the distal parts of the upper limb that execute dexterous movements.

In this paper, a novel kinematic model of the arm has been proposed, which has been inspired by the biomechanical analysis of the forearm and wrist anatomy. One additional parameter is introduced into the conventional arm model, and then both the forward and inverse kinematic models of five parameters are derived for the motion of upper arm medial/lateral rotation, elbow flexion/extension, forearm pronation/supination, wrist flexion/extension and ulnar/radial deviation. Then, experiments with an advanced haptic interface have been designed and performed to examine the presented arm kinematic model. Data analysis revealed that accuracy and robustness can be significantly improved with the new model.

This extended arm kinematic model will help device development, movement training and assessment of upper limb rehabilitation.

Published in: Advanced Robotics and Mechatronics (ICARM), International Conference on

Source: An extended kinematic model for arm rehabilitation training and assessment – IEEE Xplore Document