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ARMin: a robot for patient-cooperative arm therapy

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Abstract

Task-oriented, repetitive and intensive arm training can enhance arm rehabilitation in patients with paralyzed upper extremities due to lesions of the central nervous system. There is evidence that the training duration is a key factor for the therapy progress. Robot-supported therapy can improve the rehabilitation allowing more intensive training. This paper presents the kinematics, the control and the therapy modes of the arm therapy robot ARMin. It is a haptic display with semi-exoskeleton kinematics with four active and two passive degrees of freedom. Equipped with position, force and torque sensors the device can deliver patient-cooperative arm therapy taking into account the activity of the patient and supporting him/her only as much as needed. The haptic display is combined with an audiovisual display that is used to present the movement and the movement task to the patient. It is assumed that the patient-cooperative therapy approach combined with a multimodal display can increase the patient’s motivation and activity and, therefore, the therapeutic progress.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported in part by the NCCR for Neuroplasticity and Repair, Project 8, Switzerland. We thank Dr. Gery Colombo from Hocoma AG, Volketswil, Switzerland for his contribution to this work. We also thank the occupational therapists and Prof. Dr. V. Dietz of the Balgrist University Hospital, Zürich, as well as Raphael Suard, Stéphane Kühne, Christina Perndl, Frauke Oldewurtel and Gabriela Kiefer for their contributions to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sensory-Motor Systems (SMS) Laboratory, ETH Zürich, TAN E, Tannenstrasse 1, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Tobias Nef, Matjaz Mihelj & Robert Riener

  2. Spinal Cord Injury Center, University Hospital Balgrist, University Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Tobias Nef, Matjaz Mihelj & Robert Riener

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  1. Tobias Nef
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  2. Matjaz Mihelj
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  3. Robert Riener
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Correspondence to Tobias Nef.

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Nef, T., Mihelj, M. & Riener, R. ARMin: a robot for patient-cooperative arm therapy. Med Bio Eng Comput 45, 887–900 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-007-0226-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-007-0226-6

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