Kanta Aoki

Rehabilitation robots assisting in walking training for SCI patient

We have been developing a series of robots to apply for each step of spinal cord injury (SCI) recovery. We describe the preliminary walking pattern assisting robot and the practical walking assisting robot, which will be applied to the incomplete type of SCI to Quadriplegia. The preliminary experimental results are performed by normal subjects to verify the basic functions of the robot assisting and to prepare the test by SCI patients.

Rehabilitation Robot in Primary Walking Pattern Training for SCI Patient at Home

Recently, attention has been focused on incomplete-type spinal cord injury to the central spine caused by pressure on parts of the white matter conducting pathway such as the pyramidal tract. In this paper, we focus on a training robot designed to assist with primary walking pattern training. The target patient of this training robot is one who is relearning the basic functions of the usual walking pattern, especially for patients with the incomplete type SCI to the central spine, who are capable of standing by themselves but are not capable of performing walking motions. From the perspective of human engineering, we monitored the operator’s actions to the robot and investigated the movement of joints of the lower extremities, the circumference of the lower extremities and the exercise intensity with the machine. The concept of the device is to provide mild training without any sudden changes in heart rate or blood pressure, which will be particularly useful for the elderly and disabled.

Robotic stretcher for spinal muscular atrophy patient: Preliminary tests of user controllability

Diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) often cause motor disabilities through the progressive loss of muscle power. However, some patients must lie horizontally and thus cannot operate a wheelchair. The aim of this study was to develop a robotic stretcher for an SMA patient with severe motor disabilities to enable her to maneuver independently inside a building. The concept underlying the stretcher is that the user should be able to drive the stretcher using an applicable operating device while watching a display feed from cameras mounted on the stretcher. We have developed new devices with an operating algorithm, mechanical frame and control system suitable to the users limited abilities (motion in only one finger), and verified their functions through tests of a prototype machine operated by the target user.

Rehabilitation robot in primary walking pattern training for SCI patient: Training robot for home-use based on the experiments of the hospital-use type

Recently, attention has been focused on incomplete-type spinal cord injury (SCI) to the central spine caused by pressure on parts of the white matter conducting pathway such as the pyramidal tract. In this paper, we focus on a training robot designed to assist with primary walking pattern training. The target patient of this training robot is one who is relearning the basic functions of the usual walking pattern, especially for patients with the incomplete type SCI to the central spine, who are capable of standing by themselves but are not capable of performing walking motions. We investigated the movement of joints of the lower extremities, the circumference of the lower extremities and the exercise intensity with the machine. From the experimental results the training robot for home-use based on the experiments on the hospital-use type is proposed. The operating panel, accessibility from wheel chair to the robot and the mechanism were modified for the home-use.