Mouth opening and closing training with 6-DOF parallel robot

Abstract

This paper describes a 6 degrees freedom (DOF) parallel robot that is designed for the mouth opening and closing training. The rehabilitation for the patient who have problems on the jaw joint, mastication muscles, and other organs concerning the food chewing have been done primarily based on the doctor's technique. Conventional mouth opening apparatuses (such as wooden screws, bite blocks and clothespins-type apparatus) only increases mouth opening distance and do not have actuators, sensors, and/or control systems. Moreover, during therapy, the quantitative force data is unknown in spite of its importance for the standardization of mouth opening and closing training. Mouth opening and closing training robot WY-5 (Waseda Yamanashi No. 5) consists of mechanical, actuation, sensor and control systems. As a result of therapy using WY-5, the mouth opening distance increased.