STTR Phase II: Low-Cost Portable Telerehabilitation System for Intelligent Stretching and Remote Assessment of Hypertonic Arm Joints

这一STTR第二阶段研究项目旨在开发中风后神经功能障碍患者康复所需的技术。对于这些患者来说，物理治疗和及时的检查是康复的基石。然而，由于获得专家医疗服务的机会有限，并非所有患者都得到了足够的治疗。需要一种远程康复系统，该系统可以在远程位置精确控制下拉伸痉挛/收缩的关节，并提供远程访问专家保健服务。这项第二阶段的研究将侧重于通过改进远程康复系统的设计来改进技术，使其适合市场，以用于治疗/评估手臂多个关节的多用途应用。它将使便携式设备成为独立设备，内置被动拉伸、自愿运动练习和远程评估关节活动范围、僵硬、痉挛和接球的功能，以直观的方式显示。最后，将对中风幸存者进行远程康复系统的临床测试。这种轻便、低成本的牵伸器适合在家中使用，让大量患者能够获得频繁而便捷的治疗。它可能会对中风和其他神经损伤的康复产生广泛的影响。智能伸展的概念是为了确保安全有效的治疗，它也将适用于处理人机界面的其他应用程序。

This STTR Phase II research project seeks to develop technologies needed for rehabilitation of post-stroke patients with neurological impairment. For those patients, physical therapy followed by timely examination is the cornerstone of the rehabilitation. However, not all patients receive sufficient therapy due to limited access to expert healthcare services. There is a need for a tele-rehabilitation system that can stretch the spastic/contractured joints under accurate control at a remote location and provide remote access to expert healthcare services. This Phase II research will focus on improving the technology and making it suitable for the market by improving the design of the tele-rehabilitation system for multi-purpose applications to treat/evaluate multiple joints in the arm. It will make the portable device stand-alone with built-in capabilities of passive stretching, voluntary movement exercise, and tele-assessment of joint range of motion, stiffness, spasticity, and catch displayed in an intuitive way. Finally, a clinical test of the tele-rehabilitation system on stroke survivors will be conducted. This portable and low-cost stretching device is suitable for home use, making frequent and convenient treatment accessible to a large number of patients. It can potentially have broad impact on rehabilitation of stroke and other neurological impairments. The intelligent stretching concept was developed to insure safe and effective treatment and it will also be useful in other applications dealing with human-machine interface.