Overview of clinical trials with MIT-MANUS: a robot-aided neuro-rehabilitation facility.

We are applying robotics and information technology to assist, enhance, and quantify neuro-rehabilitation. Our goal is a new class of interactive, user-affectionate clinical devices designed not only for evaluating patients, but also-for delivering meaningful therapy via engaging "video games". Notably, the novel robot MIT-MANUS has been designed and programmed for clinical neurological applications, and has undergone extensive clinical trials for more than four years at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital - White Plains, NY. This paper will review results of the first clinical trial of 20 patients, which showed that: - Stroke patients treated daily with additional robot-aided therapy during acute rehabilitation had improved outcome in motor activity at hospital discharge, when compared to a control group that received only standard acute rehabilitation treatment. - This improved outcome was sustained after three years. - The neuro-recovery process continued far beyond the commonly accepted 3 months post-stroke interval.     

Bilateral robots for upper-limb stroke rehabilitation: State of the art and future prospects

Robot-assisted bilateral upper-limb training grows abundantly for stroke rehabilitation in recent years and an increasing number of devices and robots have been developed. This paper aims to provide a systematic overview and evaluation of existing bilateral upper-limb rehabilitation devices and robots based on their mechanisms and clinical-outcomes. Most of the articles studied here were searched from nine online databases and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) from year 1993 to 2015. Devices and robots were categorized as end-effectors, exoskeletons and industrial robots. Totally ten end-effectors, one exoskeleton and one industrial robot were evaluated in terms of their mechanical characteristics, degrees of freedom (DOF), supported control modes, clinical applicability and outcomes. Preliminary clinical results of these studies showed that all participants could gain certain improvements in terms of range of motion, strength or physical function after training. Only four studies supported that bilateral training was better than unilateral training. However, most of clinical results cannot definitely verify the effectiveness of mechanisms and clinical protocols used in robotic therapies. To explore the actual value of these robots and devices, further research on ingenious mechanisms, dose-matched clinical protocols and universal evaluation criteria should be conducted in the future.     

ROAD: domestic assistant and rehabilitation robot

This study introduces the concept design and analysis of a robotic system for the assistance and rehabilitation of disabled people. Based on the statistical data of the most common types of disabilities in Spain and other industrialized countries, the different tasks that the device must be able to perform have been determined. In this study, different robots for rehabilitation and assistance previously introduced have been reviewed. This survey is focused on those robots that assist with gait, balance and standing up. The structure of the ROAD robot presents various advantages over these robots, we discuss some of them. The performance of the proposed architecture is analyzed when it performs the sit to stand activity.     

ARMin: a robot for patient-cooperative arm therapy

Task-oriented, repetitive and intensive arm training can enhance arm rehabilitation in patients with paralyzed upper extremities due to lesions of the central nervous system. There is evidence that the training duration is a key factor for the therapy progress. Robot-supported therapy can improve the rehabilitation allowing more intensive training. This paper presents the kinematics, the control and the therapy modes of the arm therapy robot ARMin. It is a haptic display with semi-exoskeleton kinematics with four active and two passive degrees of freedom. Equipped with position, force and torque sensors the device can deliver patient-cooperative arm therapy taking into account the activity of the patient and supporting him/her only as much as needed. The haptic display is combined with an audiovisual display that is used to present the movement and the movement task to the patient. It is assumed that the patient-cooperative therapy approach combined with a multimodal display can increase the patient’s motivation and activity and, therefore, the therapeutic progress.     

Exoskeleton robots for upper-limb rehabilitation: state of the art and future prospects

Current health services are struggling to provide optimal rehabilitation therapy to victims of stroke. This has motivated researchers to explore the use of robotic devices to provide rehabilitation therapy for strokepatients. This paper reviews the recent progress of upper limb exoskeleton robots for rehabilitation treatment of patients with neuromuscular disorders. Firstly, a brief introduction to rehabilitation robots will be given along with examples of existing commercial devices. The advancements in upper limb exoskeleton technology and the fundamental challenges in developing these devices are described. Potential areas for future research are discussed.     

Robots with a gentle touch: advances in assistive robotics and prosthetics.

As healthcare costs rise and an aging population makes an increased demand on services, so new techniques must be introduced to promote an individuals independence and provide these services. Robots can now be designed so they can alter their dynamic properties changing from stiff to flaccid, or from giving no resistance to movement, to damping any large and sudden movements. This has some strong implications in health care in particular for rehabilitation where a robot must work in conjunction with an individual, and might guiding or assist a persons arm movements, or might be commanded to perform some set of autonomous actions. This paper presents the state-of-the-art of rehabilitation robots with examples from prosthetics, aids for daily living and physiotherapy. In all these situations there is the potential for the interaction to be non-passive with a resulting potential for the human/machine/environment combination to become unstable. To understand this instability we must develop better models of the human motor system and fit these models with realistic parameters. This paper concludes with a discussion of this problem and overviews some human models that can be used to facilitate the design of the human/machine interfaces.     

Robot assisted treadmill training: mechanisms and training strategies

The rehabilitation engineering community is working towards the development of robotic devices that can assist during gait training of patients suffering from neurologic injuries such as stroke and spinal cord injuries (SCI). The field of robot assisted treadmill training has rapidly evolved during the last decade. The robotic devices can provide repetitive, systematic and prolonged gait training sessions. This paper presents a review of the treadmill based robotic gait training devices. An overview of design configurations and actuation methods used for these devices is provided. Training strategies designed to actively involve the patient in robot assisted treadmill training are studied. These training strategies assist the patient according to the level of disability and type of neurologic injury. Although the efficacy of these training strategies is not clinically proven, adaptive strategies may result in substantial improvements. We end our review with a discussion covering major advancements made at device design and training strategies level and potential challenges to the field.     

软体机器人在医学领域的应用

软体机器人具有自由度高、适应性强、安全性高等优点,已成为机器人领域的研究热点;且因其采用软材料制成,与人体相容性较好,在医学领域中也具有广泛应用前景。本研究对软体机器人的驱动方式、建模控制、制造方法、变刚度方法等关键技术作了总结与分析;对软体机器人在医学领域如外科手术、康复治疗、药物输送、心脏设备等的典型应用及发展现状进行综述。针对现有医疗软体机器人存在的缺陷,总结出其面临的挑战,并提出对医疗软体机器人的展望。     

Managing device infections: are we progressing or is infection an insurmountable obstacle?

This article reviews infections that occur in patients with implanted mechanical circulatory support devices and presents recent data for signs of progress in controlling the incidence and impact of these infections. Two types of comparisons are used to examine this question. First, the outcomes of patients with HeartMate vented electric left ventricular assist devices (VADs) (Thoratec Corp, Pleasanton, CA) implanted during the REMATCH Trial are compared with the outcome of more recent patients who received this pump as destination therapy. Second, the outcome of patients who received a smaller left VAD (e.g., an axial flow VAD) or a fully implanted left VAD are reported and contrasted with results from the REMATCH era. Data are presented to support the hypothesis that improvements in patient selection, patient management, device durability, and device design have resulted in lower rates of infection and infection-related death for patients who require mechanical circulatory support.     

Control strategies for effective robot assisted gait rehabilitation: The state of art and future prospects

A large number of gait rehabilitation robots, together with a variety of control strategies, have been developed and evaluated during the last decade. Initially, control strategies applied to rehabilitation robots were adapted from those applied to traditional industrial robots. However, these strategies cannot optimise effectiveness of gait rehabilitation. As a result, researchers have been investigating control strategies tailored for the needs of rehabilitation. Among these control strategies, assisted-as-needed (AAN) control is one of the most popular research topics in this field. AAN training strategies have gained the theoretical and practical evidence based backup from motor learning principles and clinical studies. Various approaches to AAN training have been proposed and investigated by research groups all around the world. This article presents a review on control algorithms of gait rehabilitation robots to summarise related knowledge and investigate potential trends of development.There are existing review papers on control strategies of rehabilitation robots. The review by Marchal-Crespo and Reinkensmeyer (2009) had a broad cover of control strategies of all kinds of rehabilitation robots. Hussain et al. (2011) had specifically focused on treadmill gait training robots and covered a limited number of control implementations on them. This review article encompasses more detailed information on control strategies for robot assisted gait rehabilitation, but is not limited to treadmill based training. It also investigates the potential to further develop assist-as-needed gait training based on assessments of patients’ ability.In this paper, control strategies are generally divided into the trajectory tracking control and AAN control. The review covers these two basic categories, as well as other control algorithm and technologies derived from them, such as biofeedback control. Assessments on human gait ability are also included to investigate how to further develop implementations based on assist-as-needed concept. For the consideration of effectiveness, clinical studies on robotic gait rehabilitation are reviewed and analysed from the viewpoint of control algorithm.     

Bilateral assessment of functional tasks for robot-assisted therapy applications

This article presents a novel evaluation system along with methods to evaluate bilateral coordination of arm function on activities of daily living tasks before and after robot-assisted therapy. An affordable bilateral assessment system (BiAS) consisting of two mini-passive measuring units modeled as three degree of freedom robots is described. The process for evaluating functional tasks using the BiAS is presented and we demonstrate its ability to measure wrist kinematic trajectories. Three metrics, phase difference, movement overlap, and task completion time, are used to evaluate the BiAS system on a bilateral symmetric (bi-drink) and a bilateral asymmetric (bi-pour) functional task. Wrist position and velocity trajectories are evaluated using these metrics to provide insight into temporal and spatial bilateral deficits after stroke. The BiAS system quantified movements of the wrists during functional tasks and detected differences in impaired and unimpaired arm movements. Case studies showed that stroke patients compared to healthy subjects move slower and are less likely to use their arm simultaneously even when the functional task requires simultaneous movement. After robot-assisted therapy, interlimb coordination spatial deficits moved toward normal coordination on functional tasks.     

Functional MRI using robotic MRI compatible devices for monitoring rehabilitation from chronic stroke in the molecular medicine era (Review)

The number of individuals suffering from stroke is increasing daily, and its consequences are a major contributor to invalidity in today's society. Stroke rehabilitation is relatively new, having been hampered from the longstanding view that lost functions were not recoverable. Nowadays, robotic devices, which aid by stimulating brain plasticity, can assist in restoring movement compromised by stroke-induced pathological changes in the brain which can be monitored by MRI. Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of stroke patients participating in a training program with a novel Magnetic Resonance Compatible Hand-Induced Robotic Device (MR_CHIROD) could yield a promising biomarker that, ultimately, will enhance our ability to advance hand motor recovery following chronic stroke. Using state-of-the art MRI in conjunction with MR_CHIROD-assisted therapy can provide novel biomarkers for stroke patient rehabilitation extracted by a meta-analysis of data. Successful completion of such studies may provide a ground breaking method for the future evaluation of stroke rehabilitation therapies. Their results will attest to the effectiveness of using MR-compatible hand devices with MRI to provide accurate monitoring during rehabilitative therapy. Furthermore, such results may identify biomarkers of brain plasticity that can be monitored during stroke patient rehabilitation. The potential benefit for chronic stroke patients is that rehabilitation may become possible for a longer period of time after stroke than previously thought, unveiling motor skill improvements possible even after six months due to retained brain plasticity.     

放松治疗技术对康复期精神分裂症患者的影响

目的 探讨放松治疗技术对康复期精神分裂症病人的效果.方法 将60例康复期精神分裂症患者,随机分为两组即实验组(放松治疗组)和对照组(未干预组).采用简明精神病译定量表(BPRS)、社会功能缺陷筛选量表(SDSS)和日常生活能力量表(ADL)对治疗前和治疗后9周末进行量化评定.结果 9周末放松治疗组BPRS、SDSS及A...     

High-dose carvedilol therapy for mechanical circulatory assisted patients

Left ventricular assist devices are increasingly being used as a “bridge to recovery” in the clinical arena. However, the percentage of patients who can be weaned off these devices is still low. Carvedilol is an anti-heart failure agent that is used to induce cardiac reverse remodeling, and its effect is reportedly dose-dependent. In this study, we conducted high-dose carvedilol therapy (80 mg daily) in five patients who wore left ventricular assist devices. Three of the five patients showed an increase in cardiac function after this therapy, and one patient was successfully weaned off his device. No major adverse events were observed. The high-dose carvedilol therapy was found to be a safely tolerated intervention that may have enhanced the reverse remodeling of the failing heart in patients with left ventricular assist devices.     

下肢外骨骼康复机器人在膝关节活动受限康复治疗中的应用*

背景：下肢外骨骼康复机器人以持续主被动活动联合为理论基础,通过模拟人体运动,刺激机体的自然复原力,发挥组织代偿作用。 目的：动态观察并了解下肢外骨骼康复机器人在膝关节活动受限患者功能锻炼中的康复作用。 方法：将20例术后早期膝关节活动受限患者随机等分为实验组与对照组,实验组采用下肢外骨骼康复机器人行肢体功能锻炼,对照组采用被动训练装置CPM机行功能锻炼,治疗间隙2组均采用心理疏导、低频脉冲电疗和红外线等物理治疗。 结果与结论：治疗2个月后,实验组与对照组患者膝关节后屈、前伸活动度均较治疗前明显改善(P < 0.01),同时实验组股四头肌肌力较治疗前明显改善(P < 0.01)。2个月后的后续治疗,实验组患者膝关节后屈、前伸活动度有了进一步的改善(P < 0.05),对照组上述指标无明显改善。说明早期采用下肢外骨骼康复机器人或CPM机配合心理疏导、低频脉冲电疗和红外线等治疗均能明显提高膝关节活动受限患者膝关节活动度,同时下肢外骨骼康复机器人具有恢复患者股四头肌肌力的作用。     

下肢助力机器人动力学分析与应用

背景：2005年成功研制出下肢康复机器人系统,该机器人通过中心控制系统和步态、姿态控制系统互相协调,带动下肢各种运动,从而达到恢复下肢功能的目的。 目的：对下肢康复助力机器人做动力学分析。 方法：该系统为一个复杂的动力系统,由多个关节和多个连杆组成,具有多个输入和多个输出,分析其运动和作用力之间的关系。通过运动信息感知网,实现机器人系统主动为使用者提供完成髋关节屈/伸、旋内/旋外及外展/内收功能恢复动作的助力支持。 结果与结论：利用动力学方程完成人-机混合系统的控制。减小人体感受的运动强度,使练习者能充分完成功能恢复动作,随着康复者下肢力量的加强和动作的熟练程度的提高,通过改变系统控制参数,系统会逐步减少对其助力支持,直到康复。     

Mechanical circulatory support systems--a review.

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is a major health problem with a high mortality rate. Its ultimate therapy, heart transplantation, is limited by the shortage of donor hearts. Since decades researchers have been working to solve this problem by developing Mechanical Circulatory Support Systems (MCSS) that can replace or assist the failing heart. Short-term and intermediate-term ventricular assist devices are used nowadays frequently to bridge patients with severe heart failure to recovery. Long-term ventricular assist devices (VADs) and Total Artificial Hearts (TAHs) are used increasingly as a bridge to heart transplantations or as permanent circulatory support in patients with end-stage heart failure that are contraindicated for heart transplantation. The early TAHs and VADs were mainly driven from an external pneumatic drive unit. The latest generation TAHs and long-term assist devices are electrically powered, ultracompact, totally implantable, and have small wearable drive/control consoles, allowing patients to return to their daily activities. The article categorizes and reviews the development of MCSS, highlights the medical indications and contraindications of pump implantation, advantages and disadvantages of the various systems, and results of animal and clinical studies.     

Cardiac rehabilitation and artificial heart devices

Recently, cardiac rehabilitation has gained popularity in Japan because beneficial effects on patients’ prognosis have been reported. Another reason is that cardiac rehabilitation has been covered by health insurance since 1988 in Japan. Currently, cardiac rehabilitation is covered for the diseases of angina pectoris, acute myocardial infarction, chronic heart failure (CHF), peripheral arterial disease, and diseases of the aorta and after open-heart surgery. Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) are sometimes used in patients with progressive CHF symptoms to provide circulatory support, because in most of these patients heart failure does not improve with application of medical therapy, intra-aortic balloon pumping, or a percutaneous cardiopulmonary system. Modern VAD control systems are compact, allowing patients to carry them around without difficulty. Since patient management at the outpatient clinic has become possible, patients are able to expand the scope of their activities. Early active rehabilitation in patients implanted with a LVAD improves their condition, favorably impacts the clinical course while they await heart transplantation, and also improves posttransplant recovery. Exercise therapy is one of the important components in comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation. Exercise therapy is important to improve the quality of life of patients with LVADs. Appropriate exercise therapy is effective for patients with various cardiac conditions who undergo diverse treatments and is practiced actively by many patients. In order to facilitate cardiac rehabilitation safely and effectively for patients with serious conditions, education for health care professionals is essential. In this review, we describe the concept of rehabilitation followed by cardiac rehabilitation for patients with heart failure, patients after open-heart surgery, and patients with implanted LVADs.     

脑卒中患者上肢康复机器人及评价方法综述

利用机器人技术进行上肢康复训练是脑卒中患者进行康复治疗的重要手段之一。本文根据中枢神经系统具有高度的可塑性,分析了机器人辅助康复训练的理论依据。并且依据康复机器人的社会需求和研究意义,归纳总结了5种上肢康复机器人的研究进展和研究成果,其中包括上肢康复机器人、功能性电刺激辅助上肢康复机器人、基于虚拟现实技术的上肢康复机器人、基于sEMG的上肢康复训练机器人、基于BCI上肢康复训练机器人。为完善康复机器人的功能,实现对脑卒中患者上肢运动功能的量化评估,本文还分析了目前临床上常用的几种评价方法,即Brunnstrom等级评价法、Fugl?Meyer量表评价法、上田敏评价法和Bobath评价法。最后分析了上肢康复机器人在机械设计、控制策略和评价方法等方面的发展趋势。     

Performance evaluation of The Personal Mobility and Manipulation Appliance (PerMMA)

The Personal Mobility and Manipulation Appliance (PerMMA) is a recently developed personal assistance robot created to provide people with severe physical disabilities enhanced assistance in both mobility and manipulation. PerMMA aims to improve functional independence when a personal care attendant is not available on site. PerMMA integrates both a smart powered wheelchair and two dexterous robotic arms to assist its users in completing essential mobility and manipulation tasks during basic and instrumental activities of daily living (ADL). Two user interfaces were developed: a local control interface and a remote operator controller. This paper reports on the evaluation of PerMMA with end users completing basic ADL tasks. Participants with both lower and upper extremity impairments (N = 15) were recruited to operate PerMMA and complete up to five ADL tasks in a single session of no more than two hours (to avoid fatigue or frustration of the participants). The performance of PerMMA was evaluated by participants completing ADL tasks with two different control modes: local mode and cooperative control. The users’ task completion performance and answers on pre/post-evaluation questionnaires demonstrated not only the ease in learning and usefulness of PerMMA, but also their attitudes toward assistance from advanced technology like PerMMA. As a part of the iterative development process, results of this work will serve as supporting evidence to identify design criteria and other areas for improvement of PerMMA.