Robot Modeling for Physical Rehabilitation

Robot Modeling for Physical Rehabilitation

Rogério Sales Gonçalves, João Carlos Mendes Carvalho
Copyright: © 2014 |Pages: 21
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4607-0.ch058
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Abstract

The science of rehabilitation shows that repeated movements of human limbs can help the patient regain function in the injured limb. There are three types of mechanical systems used for movement rehabilitation: robots, cable-based manipulators, and exoskeletons. Industrial robots can be used because they provide a three-dimensional workspace with a wide range of flexibility to execute different trajectories, which are useful for motion rehabilitation. The cable-based manipulators consist of a movable platform and a base, which are connected by multiple cables that can extend or retract. The exoskeleton is fixed around the patient's limb to provide the physiotherapy movements. This chapter presents a summary of the principal human limb movements, a review of several mechanical systems used for rehabilitation, as well as common mathematical models of such systems.
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Joints And Movements Of The Human Body

In the present section, the principal joints and human limb movements are presented. One must keep in mind that the upper limbs serve for manipulation, and therefore their joints must allow for great mobility, while the lower limbs serve for locomotion.

For a specific rehabilitation system to be developed, one should use appropriate characteristics of motions and loads for each application. In published papers there is a lot of information about movement limits, forces and torques at joints, but in general they do not explain how and in such conditions these data were obtained. Therefore, these data must be used with prudence. On the internet, one can obtain several videos and examples of human joint motions, which help us understand joint behavior, for example in http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/factfiles/joints/ball_and_socket_joint.shtml.

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