Design of a soft robotic pneumatic actuator for elbow physical therapy

We present an innovative and novel device for home assistance elbow physiotherapy. As our end user has rigidity in superior limbs, our device care about miming the natural flexion-extension movement of the elbow, in order to provide an automatized therapy. Post-stroke patients often suffer from lack in muscle movement due to deoxygenation of the inferior neurons resulting in hemiplegia or hemiparesis. Our goal was to provide a device that can ease the implementation of home therapy, so patients can easily increase their therapy hours.We focus in elbow disability as it is one of the most common disability after an CVA, and because is the upper joint that most restricts daily activities. Answering to this specific need, we present Flexor. Flexor is an assistive device, completely flexible and portable, composed of two soft robotic pneumatic actuators capable of automatically doing the elbow flexion and extension movements. Actuators were made of an elastic material, commercially known as Ecoflex. Each actuator is responsible of one movement: flexion and extension. The device can perform two therapy modes: acute hemiplegia and acute hemiparesis differing in terms of speed and strength. The market size was estimated in 438.451 individuals. The product price is 150.000 COP and for the first sales year we expect to reached a 2% market shear offering the user the opportunity to increase therapy hours without the need of hiring extra hours of a physiotherapist, or assisting more days at week to a rehabilitation center, and therefore increasing the probability of having a complete rehabilitation and decreasing the rehabilitation time. The last design proved to exert the force needed to fully bend the elbow joint and the torque need to perform the extension movement

• Autores: Ayobi, Angela; Cascante Vega, Jaime Enrique; Cuellar Alturo, Geraldine Andrea; Serna Ayala, Mariajosé
• Tipo de recurso: Trabajo de grado de pregrado
• Fecha de publicación: 2017
• Institución: Universidad de los Andes
• Repositorio: Séneca: repositorio Uniandes
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.uniandes.edu.co:1992/38966
• Acceso en línea: http://hdl.handle.net/1992/38966
• Palabra clave: Rehabilitación médica; Fisioterapia; Codos; Accidente cerebrovascular; Ingeniería
• Rights: openAccess
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/