The bimanual lifting rehabilitator: an adaptive machine for therapy of stroke patients

Specially designed machines, which the authors call rehabilitators, could automate some of the repetitive aspects of physical and occupational therapy. Rehabilitators might also improve therapy by responding to the patient more quickly and precisely than a human therapist and by quantitatively measuring patient progress. The authors envision developing a family of inexpensive machines, each designed to retrain coordination in a specific activity of daily living, which could be used by physical and occupational therapists. To this end, the authors have built a rehabilitator for assisting hemiplegic stroke patients in bimanual lifting. In this task, subjects lift an object off a table with two hands, support it, then replace it on the table. If the disabled hand is unable to contribute to the task, the rehabilitator substitutes for it. The rehabilitator can substitute for the disabled hand well enough to lift a cafeteria tray with a cup of coffee on it without spilling it. If the disabled hand has fully recovered, the rehabilitator does not intervene. >