Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
neither the decreases in the overall CIs related to the BIC muscle. It implied that
further improvements in these CIs may be obtained with more training sessions.
5.4 CONCLUSIONS
The continuous intention-driven rehabilitation robot mainly could improve the
voluntary motor function in muscle coordination during tracking tasks, and this
improvement could be maintained after the training, as assessed by the 3-month
follow up test. The voluntary motor improvement not only could be obtained at
the training joint, e.g. the wrist joint in the robot-assisted wrist training, but also
could be observed at the neighboring proximal joint, i.e., the elbow joint in the
wrist training. Similar observations were also reported in a clinical trial study
related to the continuous intention-driven robot-assisted elbow training study,
i.e., the training improved the elbow function, as well as the shoulder function
(Hu
et al
. 2007; Hu
et al.
2008; Hu
et al
. 2009).
5.5 FUTURE STUDIES
One of the questions related to interactive rehabilitation robot development, which
has not been well addressed by many studies, is that how the specific, or unique,
design of a robot is related to the motor improvements achieved by this robot, in
comparison with other similar interactive robots. Future works on randomized
clinical trial studies are necessary for quantitatively understanding of the unique-
ness of a rehabilitation robot with predictable training effects.
The success of a rehabilitation robot not only depends on the non-fatiguing
motor, but also on the simulation of the interactive treatments conducted by a
human physiotherapist. Most of current rehabilitation robots are very preliminary
in treatment skill, or rehabilitation knowledge, when compared with a human
physiotherapist. For example, the treatment of a robot usually is not adaptive
with the recovery process of a subject. There is still a very large growing space for
rehabilitation robot to be more intelligent.
5.6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Project was funded by Hong Kong Polytechnic University under Niche Areas
Grant (1-BB50).
References
HUMAC NORM Testing & Rehabilitation System: User 's Guide Model 770. Computer
Sports Medicine, Inc., (2005).
