Barriers and Facilitators to the Use of Wearable Robots as Assistive Devices: Qualitative Study With Older Adults and Physiotherapists.

Background: Light wearable robots have the potential to assist older adults with mobility impairments in daily life by compensating for age-related decline in lower extremity strength. Physiotherapists may be the first point of contact for older adults with these devices.

Objective: The aims of this study were to explore views of older adults and physiotherapists on wearable robots as assistive devices for daily living and to identify the barriers and facilitators to their use.

Guided Exploration Leads to Faster Familiarization with a Wearable Robot: First Results of an Innovative Protocol.

Wearable robots show promise in addressing physical and functional deficits in individuals with mobility impairments. However, the process of learning to use these devices can take a long time. In this study, we propose a novel protocol to support the familiarization process with a wearable robot (the Myosuit) and achieve faster walking speeds.

An algorithm to reduce human-robot interface compliance errors in posture estimation in wearable robots.

Assistive forces transmitted from wearable robots to the robot's users are often defined by controllers that rely on the accurate estimation of the human posture. The compliant nature of the human-robot interface can negatively affect the robot's ability to estimate the posture. In this article, we present a novel algorithm that uses machine learning to correct these errors in posture estimation.

Activity-based training with the Myosuit: a safety and feasibility study across diverse gait disorders.

Background: Physical activity is a recommended part of treatment for numerous neurological and neuromuscular disorders. Yet, many individuals with limited mobility are not able to meet the recommended activity levels. Lightweight, wearable robots like the Myosuit promise to facilitate functional ambulation and thereby physical activity.

Age-Dependent Asymmetry of Wrist Position Sense Is Not Influenced by Stochastic Tactile Stimulation.

Stochastic stimulation has been shown to improve movement, balance, the sense of touch, and may also improve position sense. This stimulation can be non-invasive and may be a simple technology to enhance proprioception. In this study, we investigated whether sub-threshold stochastic tactile stimulation of mechanoreceptors reduces age-related errors in wrist position estimation.

Stance and Swing Detection Based on the Angular Velocity of Lower Limb Segments During Walking.

Lower limb exoskeletons require the correct support magnitude and timing to achieve user assistance. This study evaluated whether the sign of the angular velocity of lower limb segments can be used to determine the timing of the stance and the swing phase during walking. We assumed that stance phase is characterized by a positive, swing phase by a negative angular velocity.

Do we need complex rehabilitation robots for training complex tasks?

One key question in motor learning is how the complex tasks in daily life - those that require coordinated movements of multiple joints - should be trained. Often, complex tasks are directly taught as a whole, even though training of simple movement components before training the entire movement has been shown to be more effective for particularly complex tasks ("part-whole transfer paradigm"). The important implication of the part-whole transfer paradigm, e.

User-driven walking assistance: first experimental results using the MyoSuit.

Wearable robots for the legs have been developed for gait rehabilitation training and as assistive devices. Most devices have been rigid exoskeletons designed to substitute the function of users who are completely paralyzed. While effective for this target group, exoskeletons limit their users' contributions to movements.

TRPV1 Inhibits the Ventilatory Response to Hypoxia in Adult Rats, but Not the CO₂-Drive to Breathe.

Receptors of the transient receptor potential (TRP) channels superfamily are expressed in many tissues and have different physiological functions. However, there are few studies investigating the role of these channels in cardiorespiratory control in mammals. We assessed the role of central and peripheral TRPV1 receptors in the cardiorespiratory responses to hypoxia (10% O₂) and hypercapnia (7% CO₂) by measuring pulmonary ventilation ( V ˙ E ), heart rate (HR), mean arterial pressure (MAP) and body temperature (Tb) of male Wistar rats before and after intraperitoneal (AMG9810 [2.

Trends in robot-assisted and virtual reality-assisted neuromuscular therapy: a systematic review of health-related multiplayer games.

Background: Multiplayer games have emerged as a promising approach to increase the motivation of patients involved in rehabilitation therapy. In this systematic review, we evaluated recent publications in health-related multiplayer games that involved patients with cognitive and/or motor impairments. The aim was to investigate the effect of multiplayer gaming on game experience and game performance in healthy and non-healthy populations in comparison to individual game play.

The Myosuit: Bi-articular Anti-gravity Exosuit That Reduces Hip Extensor Activity in Sitting Transfers.

Muscle weakness-which can result from neurological injuries, genetic disorders, or typical aging-can affect a person's mobility and quality of life. For many people with muscle weakness, assistive devices provide the means to regain mobility and independence. These devices range from well-established technology, such as wheelchairs, to newer technologies, such as exoskeletons and exosuits.

Making neurorehabilitation fun: Multiplayer training via damping forces balancing differences in skill levels.

Multiplayer environments are thought to increase the training intensity in robot-aided rehabilitation therapy after stroke. We developed a haptic-based environment to investigate the dynamics of two-player training performing time-constrained reaching movements using the ARMin rehabilitation robot. We implemented a challenge level adaptation algorithm that controlled a virtual damping coefficient to reach a desired success rate.

A novel pneumatic stimulator for the investigation of noise-enhanced proprioception.

Executing coordinated movements requires that motor and sensory systems cooperate to achieve a motor goal. Impairment of either system may lead to unstable and/or inaccurate movements. In rehabilitation training, however, most approaches have focused on the motor aspects of the control loop.

Evaluation of a mixed controller that amplifies spatial errors while reducing timing errors.

Previous results suggest that haptic guidance enhances learning of the timing components of motor tasks, whereas error amplification is better for learning the spatial components. In this paper we evaluate a novel mixed guidance controller that combines haptic guidance and error amplification to simultaneously promote learning of the timing and spatial components. The controller is realized using a saddle-like force field around the desired movement position.

Robotic Rehabilitator of the Rodent Upper Extremity: A System and Method for Assessing and Training Forelimb Force Production after Neurological Injury.

Rodent models of spinal cord injury are critical for the development of treatments for upper limb motor impairment in humans, but there are few methods for measuring forelimb strength of rodents, an important outcome measure. We developed a novel robotic device--the Robotic Rehabilitator of the Rodent Upper Extremity (RUE)--that requires rats to voluntarily reach for and pull a bar to retrieve a food reward; the resistance of the bar can be programmed. We used RUE to train forelimb strength of 16 rats three times per week for 23 weeks before and 38 weeks after a mild (100 kdyne) unilateral contusion at the cervical level 5 (C5).

Effects of robotically modulating kinematic variability on motor skill learning and motivation.

It is unclear how the variability of kinematic errors experienced during motor training affects skill retention and motivation. We used force fields produced by a haptic robot to modulate the kinematic errors of 30 healthy adults during a period of practice in a virtual simulation of golf putting. On day 1, participants became relatively skilled at putting to a near and far target by first practicing without force fields.

Robot-assisted motor training: assistance decreases exploration during reinforcement learning.

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a form of motor learning that robotic therapy devices could potentially manipulate to promote neurorehabilitation. We developed a system that requires trainees to use RL to learn a predefined target movement. The system provides higher rewards for movements that are more similar to the target movement.

Time flies when you are in a groove: using entrainment to mechanical resonance to teach a desired movement distorts the perception of the movement's timing.

The human motor system quickly entrains rhythmic limb movement to the resonant frequency of mechanical systems with which it interacts, suggesting that entrainment to an appropriately designed training device might be a convenient way to teach desired movements. We tested this possibility by asking healthy subjects (N = 30) to learn to move with a desired movement timing using a simple resonating arm training device: a lever attached to a manual wheelchair. The subjects tried to learn to roll the lever-driven wheelchair back and forth in place at a target frequency initially presented using a series of auditory beeps.

Effort, performance, and motivation: insights from robot-assisted training of human golf putting and rat grip strength.

Robotic devices can modulate success rates and required effort levels during motor training, but it is unclear how this affects performance gains and motivation. Here we present results from training unimpaired humans in a virtual golf-putting task, and training spinal cord injured (SCI) rats in a grip strength task using robotically modulated success rates and effort levels. Robotic assistance in golf practice increased trainees feelings of competence, and, paradoxically, increased their sense effort, even though it had mixed effects on learning.

Collaborative engineering: 3-D optical imaging and gas exchange simulation of in-vitro alveolar constructs.

This paper reports on the computational simulation and modeling of an in vitro alveolar construct system along the optical coherence microscopy (OCM) methods for visualizing engineered tissue. The optical imaging methods will be compared to immunohistochemical light microscopy samples of engineered alveolar constructs. Results show depth images of the alveolar tissue construct for a bilayer construct, as well as predictions of the gas exchange process in a simple model of a bio-reactor hosting the construct.