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Bone cancer metastasis patients feel severe pain while performing rollover movement. We have been developing a robotic trunk orthosis to support the rollover movement in bed for bone cancer metastasis patients. In this support system, the myoelectric signal is used to recognize the start timing of the rollover movement. However, the characteristics of the myoelectric signal can change easily from...
Electromyography (EMG) has been frequently proposed as the driving signal for controlling powered exoskeletons. Lot of effort has been spent to design accurate algorithms for muscular torque estimation, while very few studies attempted to understand to what extent an accurate torque estimate is indeed necessary to provide effective movement assistance through powered exoskeletons. In this study, we...
We introduce a method for lower-limb physical rehabilitation by means of a robot that applies preliminary defined forces to a patient's foot while moving it on a preliminary defined trajectory. We developed a special musculoskeletal model that takes into consideration the generated muscle forces of 27 musculotendon actuators and joint stiffness of the leg and allows the calculation of the motion trajectory...
Analyzing activities of daily living (ADL) for the development of practical upper limb rehabilitation robots is challenging in stroke patients. Basic ADL tasks using an upper limb are defined based on clinical assessment tools. The motions of 8 healthy participants and 8 stroke patients were recorded during defined ADL tasks, and then analyzed with respect to completion time, linearity of motion,...
In this paper, we discuss a strategy for the adaptation of the “difficulty level” in games intended to include motor planning during robotic rehabilitation. We consider concurrently the motivation of the user and his/her performance in a Pong game. User motivation is classified in three levels (not motivated, well motivated and overloaded). User performance is measured as a combination of knowledge...
This paper outlines the design and development of a robotic exoskeleton based rehabilitation system. A portable direct-driven optimized hand exoskeleton system has been proposed. The optimization procedure primarily based on matching the exoskeleton and finger workspaces guided the system design. The selection of actuators for the proposed system has emerged as a result of experiments with users of...
The robot described in this paper, SUE (Supinator Extender), adds forearm/wrist rehabilitation functionality to the UCI BONES exoskeleton robot and to the ArmeoSpring rehabilitation device. SUE is a 2-DOF serial chain that can measure and assist forearm supination-pronation and wrist flexion-extension. The large power to weight ratio of pneumatic actuators allows SUE to achieve the forces needed for...
The goal of this study was to use an offaxis robotic elliptical trainer to improve off-axis neuromuscular control in people with knee injuries. Thirteen individuals with knee injuries participated in the study. Among them, 8 individuals participated in 18 sessions of pivoting offaxis intensity-adjustable neuromuscular control training (POINT) (3 sessions/week for 6 weeks including 3 evaluation sessions)...
This paper shows the focused assessment with sonography for trauma (FAST) performance of a wearable tele-echography robot system we have developed that we call “FASTele”. FAST is a first-step way of assessing the injury severity of patients suffering from internal bleeding who may be some time away from hospital treatment. So far, we have only verified our system's effectiveness under constantly wired...
Manually performed image-guided percutaneous procedures are limited by targeting errors due to instrument misalignment, deflection and an inability to reposition the distal tip of the instrument after it has been percutaneously inserted. These limitations result in suboptimal instrument positioning that limits diagnosis and treatment for a variety of procedures as well as excessive procedure time...
In this paper, a planning strategy for robotics-assisted interventions is formulated in terms of uncertainty at the task level. The proposed formulation attempts to increase the chance of success by maximizing robustness with respect to the task uncertainty. It is assumed that the instrument tip pose has a Gaussian distribution in the vicinity of the desired task frame, and the planner is formulated...
Precise and accurate dose delivery is critically important in external beam radiation therapy. In many cases target-volumes are stationary, but the problem arises when the tumors move significantly due to cardiac and respiratory motions. This is a case for tumors in lung, esophagus, pancreas, liver, prostate, breast, and other organs in thoracic and abdominal regions. In the article we have described...
We investigate whether and on what circumstances physical interaction with a robot may facilitate the acquisition of a novel motor skill. We focus on two different motor tasks: (i) intermanual transfer of cursive handwriting and (ii) acquisition of a putting skill. In the case of handwriting, we found that intermanual transfer is facilitated by forms of interaction that account for the temporal aspects...
The goal of this study is to better understand how the central nervous system switches between alternative stabilization strategies when presented with an unstable task. A haptic, bimanual manipulandum has been used to emulate an unstable task, which requires subjects to stabilize a virtual mass under the action of a saddle force field with two nonlinear springs, whose stiffness increases with the...
During needle insertion in soft tissue, detection of change in tissue properties is important both for diagnosis to detect pathological tissue and for prevention to avoid puncture of important structures. The presence of a membrane located deep inside the tissue results in a relatively small force variation at the needle tip that can be masked by relatively large friction force between the needle...
A motorized upper extremity orthosis based on the passive WREX system is being developed. The orthosis is a 4 dof arm controlled by user residual force inputs. The arm is intended for people with neuromuscular weakness due to muscular dystrophy or spinal muscular atrophy. Previous work determined that actuation in parallel with gravity balancing springs required less torque than actuation in series...
This study analyzes motor adaptation during a redundant tasks with the wrist. The goal is threefold: (i) understanding if motor adaptation also occurs when CNS is involved in the solution of the redundancy problem; (ii) addressing whether motor strategies used to solve redundancy (i.e Donders' law) are disrupted or not during adaptation; (iii) verifying if motor strategies remain the same during adaptation...
This paper is focused on investigating force regulation strategies employed by human central nervous system (CNS). The mechanism responsible for force control is extremely important in people's lives, but not yet well understood. We formulate the general model of force regulation and identify several possible control strategies. An experimental approach is used to determine which of the force control...
We studied the effects of Robotic-Assisted Locomotor (LOKOMAT) Training on neuromuscular properties and muscle strength of the spastic ankle in persons with incomplete Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). LOKOMAT training was performed 3 days/week during a 1-hr period including set-up time. The training was provided for 4 weeks and subjects were evaluated before and after 1, 2, and 4 weeks of training. A system...
Following spinal cord injury (SCI) reduced limb usage typically results in muscle atrophy. While robotic locomotor training has been shown to improve several aspects of stepping ability following SCI, little is known regarding the effects of automated training on the preservation of muscle function. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of two robotic locomotor training algorithms...
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