Extended Virtual Presence of Therapists through Home Service Robots

Abstract

The use of robots in rehabilitation is an increasingly viable option, given the shortage of well-trained therapists who can address individual patients' needs and priorities. Despite the acknowledged importance of customized therapy for individual patients, the means to realize it has received less research attention. Many approaches rely on rehabilitation robots, such as InMotion [3], where therapy customization is achieved by physically assisting patients when they cannot complete expected exercise movements. Consequently, it is important to accurately detect the patients' unsuccessful efforts to make exercise movements using various signals. An example that utilitzes electromyography signal can be found in Dipietro et al. [1]. These approaches lack of adaptive therapy programs where generic exercise targets do not necessarily address the specific needs/deficit of individual patients nor impose appropriate challenges.