The human shoulder is the most complex joint in the human body and its diseases are the cause of most sick leave in the workers (men and women) more than double others pathologies. On the other hand, increasing the productive age and aging cause the collapse of rehabilitation services in hospitals and clinics. Rehabilitation robotics is best partner for rehabilitation staff. There are few companies in the world that provide lower limb exoeskeletons, but just one that provide robotic exoeskeleton for upper limb. This solution, besides attending rehabilitation, is an assessment tool on the evolution of the lesion and can be easily tuned for each patient without excessive training of the physiotherapist.
Robotics exoskeletons are an important tool for therapists. In recent years, several examples of their use can be found in the rehabilitation of upper limb injuries. The advantage offered by robotic exoskeletons is the capacity to replicate with a patient the movements performed by a therapist during the treatment.
Some advantages of this device are: adaptation to different patients; evaluation of the degree of the injury; recording the patient's progress through motion and force sensors conveniently located; improvement of patient’s concentration in therapy.
It can be adapted to different patients and their therapies will be selected by an expert based on the degree of injury and the evolution of the rehabilitation.
"The shoulder and psychiatric pathologies are the most frequent cause of sick leave. The 70% of shoulder pathologies are due to overloading of the rotator cuff"
ORTE contact
Cecilia García Cena, Marie A. Destarac, Ricardo Espinoza, Javier López and Roque Saltarén
Centre for Automation and Robotics UPM-CSIC (CAR)
e: cecilia.garcia@upm.es
UPM Contact
Innovation, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship Area
Centre of Support for Technological Innovation – UPM
e: innovacion.tecnologica@upm.es