Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter Nine
Development of Robots for Active
Rehabilitation of the upper Limbs on the
Transverse Plan for Stroke Patients
Chou-Ching K. Lin
∗
, Ming-Shaung Ju
†
, Pin-Cheng Kung
†
and
Shu-Min Chen
‡
∗
Department of Neurology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Taiwan
†
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
‡
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Cheng Kung University,
Ta iwan
9.1 INTRODUCTION
Rehabilitation program is the main stay of treatment for patients suffering from
trauma, stroke or spinal cord injury. Conventionally, these programs rely heavily
on the experience and manual manipulation of the therapists. The rehabilitation
movements can be roughly divided into passive and active types. In the passive
movements, the affected limbs are passively moved by the external forces, while
in the active movements, the patients actively move their limbs under a designed
external assistance or resistance. Since the number of patients is large and the
treatment is time-consuming, it is a big advance if robots can assist in performing
treatment. In addition, it is possible to construct new treatment maneuvers with
the robots. Many robotic systems have been developed for assisting rehabilitation
of the upper limbs. One of the major difficulties in realizing rehabilitation with
robots is the controller design. In the rehabilitation robots that are designed for free
active movement, mostly single-level not hierarchical controller is implemented.
Usually one form of admittance controllers is utilized. Although the benefits
of imposing assistant or resistant force have not being fully established (Kahn
et al.
, 2006), most robotic systems give guidance about the path and impose
forces during the movements. In the rehabilitation robots that are designed for
passive movements or active movements with external assistance or resistance, the
controller is usually divided into the high and low levels. The low-level controller
