Analysis of Haptic Perception of Physical Therapists using End-Feel Training Robot

Abstract

Physical therapist (PT) emphasizes their haptic feedback during diagnosing patient symptoms. However, there is no standardized method to quantitatively assess PT's haptic sensation. In this paper, we report the difference of the haptic sensation between experts and novices using the end-feel training robot. The training robot is driven by the combination of the motor torque (controllable force) and the spring force (uncontrollable force). We employ three kinds of force protocol which imitates human end-feel reaction force. In the subjective experiment, the PTs are presented the reaction forces from the training robot and answered the most similar end-feel. We divide the PTs into two groups based on the similarity score using K-means++. The PTs are clearly classified into the high score group and the low score group. Depending on to the questionnaire, the PTs in the high score group worked long years and treated motor system disease patients mainly. This result indicates that our scoring method utilizing the training robot can evaluate the PT's haptic sensation quantitatively.