A VP-based application to improve usability of an upper-limb rehabilitation orthosis

Nowadays Virtual Prototyping (VP) of robots dynamics is an effective tool to simulate the system behavior and improve the quality of rehabilitation activities. Using a VP software environment, the patients can be visually guided in their actions and the physiotherapist can control the system parameters easily to investigate the patients\u2019 performances in real time. In this paper VP concept is introduced to support the use of an upper-limb orthosis and to improve therapeutic efficacy in rehabilitation. The system adopted is a human-worn rehabilitation exoskeleton enhanced with a VP-based application to make therapeutic exercises more accessible while reducing the effort in using the system and managing the therapy. The VP application in particular merges computational musculoskeletal analysis with simplified controls, 3D viewing and real time simulation of the patient\u2019s movements. The application has been designed to specifically address the needs of patients and therapists and improve the satisfaction in use of the global system as well as the therapy results. The system validation is based on an ad-hoc evaluation protocol and is carried out by directly involving final users during rehabilitation sessions. Experimental results demonstrated how VP prototyping effectively support the system use from both patients and physiotherapists: on one hand patients are more motivated and they learn exact movements faster; on the other hand physiotherapists are supported in diagnosis and data elaboration, and finally the rehabilitation therapy efficiency is improved