Abstract:
Injuries or neurological trauma, such as stroke, complete and incomplete spinal cord
injuries result in paraplegia and hemiplegia, which is the leading cause of disabilities world over. Survivors
have muscle coordination discrepancies resulting in impaired joint motions and inability to perform
activities of daily living (ADL). Neurological trauma falls in top 15 risk factors for Kazakhstan people and
their health conditions. Urgent steps are required to be initiated as the current rate of such disorders is
predicted to increase by three times over the next 30 years. Robot assisted physical therapy has shown
some preliminary signs of improvement in subjects and therefore active orthosis have been developed to
impart repetitive, prolonged and systematic therapy. Existing robots are normally inspired by the
industrial robots and thus provide constrained motion to the articulating joints in an uncomfortable and
unsafe manner. There is a need to develop human friendly, safe and intelligent robots in order to carry
out physical therapy. We aim at developing an intelligent rehabilitation system (IRS) using wearable
robots equipped with state of the art sensors and actuators, optimization routines (to identify
musculoskeletal functions at the affected limb) and development of advanced controllers. Physical
therapy is expected to be evidence based, objective and human friendly.
Submission guide