Robotic Rehabilitation for the Lower Extremity

Original Editor - Steven Hua

Top Contributors - Steven Hua, Angeliki Chorti, Kim Jackson, Sebastian Wozniak, Dennis Riley Louie, Brandon Graham, Naomi O'Reilly, Eric Palmer Beech, 127.0.0.1, Rachael Lowe, Amrita Patro and Rishika Babburu  

Future of Robotics

As rehabilitation robotics advances, it has the potential to completely change the way physiotherapists deliver treatment to patients in the future. Ultimately, physiotherapists can use robotics to benefit their practice by increasing the effectiveness of their assessment and treatment. Since demand for physiotherapists and long-term rehabilitation is raising, one of the main goals of current robotic development is to pair information technology with rehabilitation robotics to deliver assessment and treatment over the internet so that the physiotherapist can supervise the treatment in the comfort of the patient’s own home and allow one physiotherapist to see a large number of patients simultaneously. (Laut et al., 2016).

Currently, present-day gait robotics cannot generate the power and force necessary for running and jumping rehabilitation. In the future, development in this area will be beneficial to athletes rehabilitating from a spinal cord injury (Bryce et al., 2015). Batteries are also being further developed to maximize its life, size, weight, and ease to recharge (Bryce et al., 2015).

Other areas of robotic technology that are currently being focused on include developing lighter weight technology, making devices accessible off-the-counter and combining virtual reality and videogames to maximize patient motivation.

References

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