An awe Robotic suits for you
Robotic suit promotes normal walking in stroke patients
Wyss technology opens new approaches to gait retraining and rehabilitation
Credit: Rolex Awards/Fred Merz
W
alking upright on two legs is a defining human trait, but it’s one that can vanish in the blink of an eye.
About 80 percent of stroke patients typically lose normal function in one limb, a clinical phenomenon called hemiparesis. Even patients who recover mobility with rehabilitation can have abnormalities in their gait that keep them from participating in many activities, increase their risks of falling, and, because of the more sedentary lifestyle they impose, lead to secondary health problems.
To help these patients regain their ability to walk, robotics groups from industry and academia are developing powered wearable devices — known as exoskeletons — that restore gait functions or assist with rehabilitation. In the past, these systems could be used only on a treadmill in a clinical setting, but in recent years developers have created portable systems. Working toward the long-term goal of developing soft robots that can be worn as clothing, researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and Boston University’s College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College have developed a lightweight, soft, wearable, ankle-assisting exosuit that can reinforce normal gaits in people with hemiparesis after stroke.
In previous studies performed in healthy people, the team had demonstrated that their exosuit technology could help wearers walkand jog and produced marked reductions in energy costs. Now, in a study published in Science Translational Medicine, a research team led by Conor Walsh, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS and founder of the Harvard Biodesign Lab, collaborating with BU faculty members Terry Ellis, Louis Awad, and Kenneth Holt, has demonstrated that exosuits also can be used to improve walking after stroke — a critical step in de-risking exosuit technology toward real-world use.
Comments
Post a Comment