Systemic design of an NARR for hemiplegic survivors

摘要

A large number of hemiplegic patients have motor dysfunction. Ankle joint plays a vital role in walking behaviours and needs rehabilitative training for the stroke survivors. However, existed rehabilitative interventions have limited effects to restore individual normal motor ability. This paper presents a novel ankle rehabilitation robot (NARR) to mimic the practical skills of the professional physiotherapist. The proposed robot consists of two symmetric mechanisms, which allows stroke survivor execute ankle rehabilitation exercise based on the individual difference. The kinematics of the NARR is calculated, and theoretically verifies the reachability of the angle range of ankle joint from the workspace. The speed response of the robotic joint in the NARR is tuned, and then, three ankle training modes – passive training, active training, and fusion training – with the NARR are developed. The experiments demonstrate that the patient can move his/her affected ankle to the set angle range in the passive training mode, and exercise the muscle power in the active training mode with the assistance from the NARR. In the fusion training mode, the hemiplegic patient can mirror exercise his/her affected ankle by collecting the ankle motion information from the corresponding sound ankle. The experimental results indicate that the NARR is capable of ankle rehabilitation.