State of the art in parallel ankle rehabilitation robot: a systematic review.
Mingjie Dong, Yu Zhou, Jianfeng Li and 4 others
PMID 33743757WHAT IT FOUND
No parallel ankle rehabilitation robot is currently used in clinical practice.
All tested devices remain in the laboratory or simulation stage, with most trials conducted only on healthy subjects rather than patients with ankle dysfunction.
Key findings
01All control strategies and rehabilitation training modes for these robots are still in the testing stage, with none being used in clinical applications.
02Most parallel ankle rehabilitation robots have been tested only on healthy subjects, with very few trials involving patients with actual ankle dysfunctions.
03The review identified 65 articles describing 16 unique parallel ankle rehabilitation robot prototypes, focusing on their mechanical designs and control methods.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The review is restricted to English-language publications and specific databases, potentially missing relevant studies. The search was limited to articles published after 1999, excluding earlier foundational work. The primary focus is on mechanical and control engineering, with little to no data on clinical efficacy or patient outcomes. Most included studies involved healthy subjects, limiting the generalizability of any safety or usability findings to patients with neurological or musculoskeletal injuries.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality, the General Program of Science and Technology Development Project of Beijing Municipal Education Commission, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Key Technologies Research and Development Program.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the existence of these robot prototypes as evidence that parallel ankle rehabilitation robots are a proven, available clinical intervention. The review explicitly states that none of these devices are currently used in clinical applications and that most testing has been done on healthy subjects rather than patients.