Intelligent, affordable rehab robot to help stroke patients

Rehabilitation is crucial after a stroke. Yet patients don’t always do their exercises because they’re boring or difficult to do at home.

Physorg.com: March 27, 2012.

But what if you could make them easy and fun?

Enter University of Toronto Associate Professor Alex Mihailidis and his intelligent, table-top robot.

“This new robot will help to advance the use of robotics in stroke rehab,” said Mihailidis, “as it will provide an affordable and accessible technology that can be used in hospitals, clinics, and in the home.”

Mihailidis, of U of T’s Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) knows the speed and intensity by which stroke patients begin rehabilitation exercises greatly increases patients’ neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to reorganize itself around damaged areas by forming new neural connections—and mobility. But rehab exercises are often neglected in a home environment, either because those exercises are repetitive and boring, or because attendants and rehab machines are needed to oversee or complete the exercises.  Read More