Human arm joints reconstruction algorithm in rehabilitation therapies assisted by end-effector robotic devices.
Arturo Bertomeu-Motos, Andrea Blanco, Francisco J Badesa and 3 others
PMID 29458397WHAT IT FOUND
Arm joint angles can be estimated in real time from an upper-arm accelerometer and robot hand position.
In post-stroke patients this stayed stable when the shoulder moved, unlike a previous method.
Key findings
01The proposed algorithm estimates upper limb joint angles during robot-assisted therapy using one upper-arm accelerometer and the robot end effector.
02In healthy subjects, the algorithm's joint estimates were close to an optoelectronic reference.
03In post-stroke patients, the proposed algorithm stayed stable when the shoulder moved, while a previous algorithm lost joint estimates.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The patient experiment included only three post-stroke participants, so it cannot show that the algorithm improves therapy decisions or patient outcomes. The accuracy validation was done in seven right-handed healthy subjects, so it may not apply to all post-stroke patients, body sizes, or movement speeds. The algorithm assumes slow movement to estimate accelerometer orientation and depends on manually measured arm lengths and an initial joint estimate. The study measured joint estimation accuracy and stability, not upper limb recovery, activities of daily living, or treatment benefit. The parameters of the algorithm were chosen by trial and error under the exercise conditions.
Declared interests
Funding is listed as H2020 LEIT Information and Communication Technologies, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, and FP7 Science in Society. The supplied text does not state author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read stable joint estimates as proof that robot-assisted therapy improves upper limb recovery. The paper tested an estimation algorithm in seven healthy subjects and three post-stroke patients, not a clinical outcome.