I-Corps: Affordable Assistive Devices for Stroke Survivor Rehabilitation

I-Corps项目的更广泛影响是使身体和神经事件的幸存者能够重新获得康复的自主权。虽然拟议的工作重点是中风幸存者，但可以直接转化为其他条件的评估，援助和管理，以及在受伤后的一般培训中使用，并在工业中提高效率和降低受伤风险。有一个潜在的商业机会，在解决干预提供者的需求，量化他们的设备和医疗保健提供者的功效，允许患者的情境化。传统的康复设备往往是负担得起的，但难以使用，导致低功效和坚持;相比之下，新的康复设备提供更大的功效，但通常更昂贵。凭借大幅降低的制造成本、新颖的驱动和量化传感器以及为患者用户提供的更清晰的输出，该设备可以通过即时的自我激励指标提供可量化的数据进行评估。这种方法有可能破坏标准的康复模式。这个I-Corps项目是通过研究人类辅助，机器人，技术。它进一步开发了一种负担得起的可变剂量外骨骼（APEX），这是一种可穿戴的上身设备，用于支撑和辅助肢体，由运动致动器提供独特的动力，并通过通信传感器和建模的反馈回路自适应地满足特定的用户需求。通过改变设备致动器中的压力，APEX通过重力支撑、关节被动拉伸和阻力练习来提供帮助。一系列设备嵌入式传感器和定义的练习可以创建患者特定的模型，包括肢体长度、质量、运动范围和力量。 通过基于患者的能力改变协议，可以通过选择性地改变辅助或阻力的量来在频谱上提供支持。由于APEX采用低成本、低质量的气动执行器，而不是直流电机，因此它显著降低了功耗，并提高了设备的容量。这允许患者在自己家中使用该设备，并在简化的界面上跟踪进展-其分析结果将发送回他们的治疗师，培训师或医生。

The broader impact of this I-Corps project is in allowing survivors of physical and neurological events to regain autonomy over their rehabilitation. While the proposed work focuses on stroke survivors, there is direct translation to the assessment, assistance, and management of other conditions, as well as use in general training after injury, and in industry to improve efficiency and reduce the risk of injury. There is a potential commercial opportunity in addressing the needs of intervention providers in quantifying the efficacy of their equipment and healthcare providers in allowing for contextualization of patients. Traditional rehabilitation equipment tends to be affordable but difficult to use, resulting in low efficacy and adherence; comparatively, new rehab equipment provides greater efficacy, but is typically more expensive. With drastically lowered manufacturing costs, novel actuation and quantified sensors, and clearer outputs for patient users, this device can provide quantifiable data for evaluation through instantaneous self-motivating metrics. This approach has the potential to disrupt the standard paradigms of rehabilitation.This I-Corps project is informed by research in human-assistive, robotic, technologies. It further develops an affordable, variable-dosage exoskeleton (APEX), a wearable upper-body device to support and assist the limbs, uniquely powered by pneumatic-actuators, and adaptive to address specific user needs through feedback loops of communicative sensors and modeling. By changing the pressures in the device's actuators, APEX assists through gravitational support, passive stretching of joints, and resistance exercises. A series of device-embedded sensors and defined exercises enable the creation of patient-specific models, incorporating limb lengths, masses, ranges of motion, and strengths. By varying the protocol based on a patient's abilities, support can be provided on a spectrum by selectively changing the amount of assistance or resistance. Because APEX utilizes low-cost, low-mass, pneumatic-actuators rather than DC motors, it significantly reduces power consumption and prolongs the capacity of the device. This allows for patients to use the device in their own home, and track progress on a simplified interface - the analytics of which are sent back to their therapist, trainer, or physician.