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Technology Spotlight:New Techniques in Stroke Therapy |
MIME |
From: Rehabilitation Technologies - Volume 1, Issue 2 - September, 1999RTD-ARC is please to announce it has been awarded a Phase 1 SBIR grant from the National Institute of Health to work with the Rehabilitation R&D Center of the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in California to carry out technology transfer of their robotic stroke therapy called MIME. The use of robotic physical therapists is taking shape in the United States as a new realm for the application of robots in rehabilitation. Such devices augment the clinical rehabilitation provided by a physical therapy, provide better quantitative data to support rehabilitation decisions and progress review, and ultimately may result in substantial improvements in the speed and quality of recovery from impairments caused by stroke. Each year, 500,000 people in the United States suffer stroke and the number of stroke survivors approaches 2 million. The estimated cost to the United States exceeds $7 billion dollars per year for rehabilitation and lost tax revenue. Stroke survivors represent the most common diagnostic impairment group in many rehab units and almost 40% of these have significant disability. Current practice in stroke rehabilitation relies almost exclusively on subjective measurements by the physical therapist and the extent to which the ability to perform daily living activities is recovered. It is expected that the availability of a computer-controlled robotic therapy machine will provide revolutionary opportunities for uncovering more fully the nature of stroke and the exploration of new therapies. The basic approach of the MIME technology is to use a robotic support device to facilitate active-assisted exercise that can not only perform the therapy, but also quantitative data on the interaction forces and the range of movement. Preliminary results from early stage clinical trials of laboratory prototypes have shown improvements in both the level and speed of recovery of functional performance of individuals with hemiplegic upper extremity impairments due to stroke. The desired outcome of the Phase 1 NIH SBIR research effort will be a working computer simulation of a commercial device, and data which will support specification of the control algorithms to be implemented in the system. Rehabilitation Technologies |