Robotic Arm Aids in Grasping After Stroke

Roland Piquepaille writes "In the U.S., stroke is a major cause of long-term disability which affects 700,000 people annually. Most of them are over 65 years old and some have difficulties grasping objects after their stroke. This is why Californian researchers have developed a robotic therapy which helps restore hand use after stroke. The Hand-Wrist Assisting Robotic Device (HoWARD) has successfully been tested on seven women and six men who had suffered a stroke at least three months before the study. These results, while encouraging, need to be balanced. There must be enough residual motor power in the arm and hand of stroke patients to initiate some movement for this robotic therapy to work."

Comments

Seriously

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Perhaps parent looks like a grope for a funny, but it is not.

Sure, general independence is a big issue. However, even if stroke victims have help with many functions such as cooking, dressing, eating etc, being able to do certain things (eg. handle your own genitalia -- sexually or otherwise) at least gives you some sense of self.

Re:That's interesting

[LoudMusic]

Quite interesting stuff. It should be a lot cheaper than existing methods where you have highly trained staff spending large amounts of time doing this work. Instead, you get a robot to do it for far less (and cut out trips to the hospital so patients can convalesce at home or in a nursing home).

They also allow precise measurement of the progress you're making. How much force, how accurate your motion, how steady your speed - everything can be recorded and optimised for even better therapies.

I wouldn't think of it so much as a replacement for therapists as really a tool for therapists to do their jobs even better. Even more important than the mechanical restoration of physical abilities is the rebuilding of a person's self worth. A pretty strong effect of strokes is depression - people think there is nothing they can contribute any longer and they are purely a drain on their loved ones. Therapists are trained to repair the physical damage, but most importantly the emotional and psychological. If the stroke victim emotionally doesn't want to physically get better, these new technologies are just wasted on them.

Yes, I am married to an occupational therapist and daughter of a stroke survivor ... ;)