Engineering: High tech rehab

 

Experts from different fields in rehabilitation - therapists, doctors, engineers and psychologists - are together taking ideas from industrial robots to help patients regain upper limb movement after a stroke.

ARM (Assessment, Rehabilitation, Movement) is a unique initiative, developed by the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science, that aims to retrain weak or paralysed muscles by using engineering technology.

Professor Jane Burridge of the University’s School of Health Sciences said: “We can use state-of-the-art engineering discoveries to make a real difference to people’s lives. We are also breaking new ground in understanding how the brain recovers the ability to control movement of the arm and hand after stroke. This is essential knowledge to enable us to develop and test new treatments.

“As far as we know no-one has tried using this technique – Iterative Learning Control – to help people move again after a stroke and much of the research and rehabilitation into the effects of stroke has focussed on walking. We believe ARM is a great example of how state-of-the-art control theory, normally used for industrial robots, can be applied to challenges in rehabilitation,” she added.

Technology for the disabled

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