Sosuke Tanida

Development of third-generation intelligently Controllable ankle-foot orthosis with compact MR fluid brake

Ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) are orthotic devices that support the movement of the ankles of disabled people, for example, those suffering from hemiplegia or peroneal nerve palsy. We have developed an intelligently controllable AFO (i-AFO) in which the ankle torque is controlled by a compact magnetorheological fluid brake. Gait-control tests with the i-AFO were performed for a patient with flaccid paralysis of the ankles, who has difficulty in voluntary movement of the peripheral part of the inferior limb, and physical limitations on his ankles. By using the i-AFO, his gait control was improved by prevention of drop foot in the swing phase and by forward promotion in the stance phase.

Intelligently controllable Ankle Foot Orthosis (I-AFO) and its application for a patient of Guillain-Barre syndrome

Ankle-Foot Orthoses (AFOs) are orthotic devices supporting movements of ankles for disabled people for example hemiplegia, peroneal nerve palsy, etc. In our research, we have developed the intelligently controllable AFO (I-AFO) which can control its ankle torque by using compact Magneto-rheological fluid (MRF) brakes. In this paper, we describe the gait-control tests with I-AFO for a patient of the Guillain-Barre syndrome. The subject has difficulty in his voluntary movement of the peripheral part of the inferior limb, and there are physical limitations on his ankle. By applying the I-AFO, his gait control was improved by the prevention of drop-foot in the swing-phase and the forward promotion in the stance-phase.

Initial clinical tests for assessment models of synergy movements of stroke patients using PLEMO system with sensor grip device

In recent years, many researchers have studied on the rehabilitation robotics to assist medical staff or patients. Some kinds of haptic devices have been developed and evaluated its efficiency with clinical tests, for example, upper limb training for patients with spasticity after stroke. Almost all the devices for upper limb rehabilitation have only 2-DOF for its active motion except for wrists. But the upper limb of human works in 3-D space even except for the wrist; therefore designing a rehabilitation system for 3-D training is important. To meet this demand, we have developed a rehabilitation system for upper limbs, “PLEMO”. PLEMO is a kind of haptic device. However, in the previous system, we could not detect symptoms of abnormal movement of patients, for example synergy patterns of stroke patients, because of a lack of sensors. In this paper, we developed new sensing device for detecting such abnormal symptoms. The purpose of this study is to build an appropriate evaluation system for stroke patients with such information of abnormal symptoms. As a first step, we conducted reaching/pulling tests with this device. In this clinical evaluation, the subject is six stroke patients with different Brunnstrom stages (3, 4, 5) and twenty seven healthy subjects. By comparison with a patient movement (stage 3, 4, 5) and a normal movement, we recognized some differences of gripping forces, grip rotation angle and ground reaction forces among their movements.

Basic study on prediction of initial contact for intelligently controlled ankle foot orthosis (I-AFO)

Ankle-Foot Orthoses (AFOs) are orthotic devices supporting movements of ankles of disabled persons for example hemiplegia, polio, peroneal nerve palsy, etc. In our previous research, we developed some kinds of passive controllable AFO which can control ankle torque with Compact Magnetorheological fluid brakes. One of the remarkable key points of its control is damping control at initial contacts. We think that a prediction of the initial contact is effective for its control because the initial contact usually ends very instant moment of about 0.1s. In this paper, we describe basic control method of our controllable AFO and prediction method of the initial contact for it. Finally, we could predict instant contacts before 0.1s with the absolute error of 0.020s.