Human skull robot as a mechanical patient simulator for mouth opening and closing training

Abstract

Describes a skull robot as a patient simulator for mouth opening and closing training. The rehabilitation for patients who have problems on the jaw joint have been done primarily based on the doctor's qualitative experience and technique that is unknown to other people. The authors developed a skull robot WOJ-1R as a mechanical patient simulator This skull robot will be useful for the doctor to develop the strategy of training for the real human patient. Also, it will quantitatively clarify the effectiveness of the robots therapy compared with therapy by human. Experimental results of biting force comparison show that robot therapy force data acting on the skull robot was smaller than the conventional therapy by human.