Evaluation of an assistive upper-limb exoskeleton for severely impaired patients
| Main Authors: | Stefano Dalla Gasperina, Marta Gandolla, Valeria Longatelli, Alessandro Manti, Lorenzo Aquilante, Maria Grazia D'Angelo, Emilia Biffi, Eleonora Diella, Franco Molteni, Mauro Rossini, Margit Gfoehler, Markus Puchinger, Francesco Braghin, Alessandra Pedrocchi |
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| Format: | Proceeding Journal |
| Terbitan: |
, 2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
https://youtu.be/UMR-OTtNTQE |
Daftar Isi:
- Recent literature analysis showed the need for upper-limb assistive devices suitable for patients affected by neuromuscular pathologies. This work presents a novel upper-limb robotic exoskeleton specifically designed for muscular dystrophy patients. The exoskeleton is a 4 degrees of freedom robotic device that supports movement at the shoulder and elbow. The system can be controlled by the user in the task space by driving a joystick or by means of speech recognition. The device has been field-tested on 5 dystrophic patients with the goal of evaluating performances, comfort, safety and usability of the device during daily life activities. Quantitative results on upper-limb functional performances with and without the exoskeleton are presented showing beneficial effects. Usability of the device has been evaluated as good, suggesting promising future developments.