Title: Development of an upper extremity motor function rehabilitation system and an assessment system

Authors: Zhibin Song, Shuxiang Guo, Yili Fu

Addresses: Graduate School of Engineering, Kagawa University, Hayashi-cho, Takamatsu 761-0396, Japan. ' Department of Intelligent Mechanical Systems Engineering, Kagawa University, Hayashi-cho, Takamatsu 761-0396, Japan; Harbin Institutes of Technology, Nangang District, Harbin, Heilongjiang, Province, 150001, China. ' Harbin Institutes of Technology, Nangang District, Harbin, Heilongjiang, Province, 150001, China

Abstract: This paper presents a novel upper extremity motor function rehabilitation system and an assessment system. The rehabilitation system is an active rehabilitation that can be manipulated by patients through a haptic device and an inertia sensor to perform a tracking task in virtual environment with coordination training of bilateral upper extremity. The design of system aims to augment patients| force exerted by their upper extremity and the ability of force control, namely, dexterity. The structure of rehabilitation system is compact and the inertia of the haptic device|s stylus is very small (only 45 g), which makes the system suitable for home-rehabilitation. Simultaneously, in order to assess the effect of rehabilitation, an assessment system has been developed using a 6-axis force sensor. The proposed rehabilitation system is testified experimentally for the upper limbs| rehabilitation training.

Keywords: virtual reality; VR; path-unlimited training; path-limited training; position tracking; posture tracking; home rehabilitation; motor function rehabilitation; haptic devices; inertia sensors; coordination training; bilateral upper extremity; force control; dexterity; upper limbs; patient rehabilitation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMA.2011.039152

International Journal of Mechatronics and Automation, 2011 Vol.1 No.1, pp.19 - 28

Published online: 26 Mar 2015 *

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