Kinematic reconstruction of the upper limb joints in planar robot-aided therapies

Abstract

The use of robots in neuro-rehabilitation therapies has increased in recent years. One of them is the PUPArm robot, an end effector robot, that allows the patient recover the lost mobility in the upper limb joints after a stroke. Furthermore, it gives objective information about the improvement the patient's arm to the therapist. However, this data is based on the Cartesian position of the hand during the therapy without taking into account how this movement is being carried out. In this paper a new tool to evaluate the arm joints range of the patient is presented. This algorithm takes into account the compensation with trunk done by the patients due to the inability of the movement.