%0 Journal Article
%T Lower-Limb Robotic Rehabilitation: Literature Review and Challenges
%A I£¿aki D¨ªaz
%A Jorge Juan Gil
%A Emilio S¨¢nchez
%J Journal of Robotics
%D 2011
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2011/759764
%X This paper presents a survey of existing robotic systems for lower-limb rehabilitation. It is a general assumption that robotics will play an important role in therapy activities within rehabilitation treatment. In the last decade, the interest in the field has grown exponentially mainly due to the initial success of the early systems and the growing demand caused by increasing numbers of stroke patients and their associate rehabilitation costs. As a result, robot therapy systems have been developed worldwide for training of both the upper and lower extremities. This work reviews all current robotic systems to date for lower-limb rehabilitation, as well as main clinical tests performed with them, with the aim of showing a clear starting point in the field. It also remarks some challenges that current systems still have to meet in order to obtain a broad clinical and market acceptance. 1. Introduction Stroke is the third most frequent cause of death worldwide and the leading cause of permanent disability in the USA and Europe [1]. Neurological impairment after stroke frequently leads to hemiparesis or partial paralysis of one side of the body that affects the patient¡¯s ability to perform activities of daily living (ADL) such as walking and eating. Physical therapy, involving rehabilitation, helps improve the lost functions [2, 3]. The goal of rehabilitation exercises is to perform specific movements that provoke motor plasticity to the patient and therefore improve motor recovery and minimize functional deficits. Movement rehabilitation is limb dependent, thus the affected limb has to be exercised [4]. This paper focuses on lower-limb rehabilitation. One-third of surviving patients from stroke do not regain independent walking ability and those ambulatory, walk in a typical asymmetric manner [1]. Rehabilitation therapies are critical to recover, and therefore many research is ongoing on the field. The rehabilitation process toward regaining a meaningful mobility can be divided into three phases [4¨C6]: (1) the bedridden patient is mobilized into the chair as soon as possible, (2) restoration of gait, and (3) improvement of gait (i.e., training of free walking if possible). Traditional rehabilitation therapies are very labor intensive especially for gait rehabilitation, often requiring more than three therapists together to assist manually the legs and torso of the patient to perform training. This fact imposes an enormous economic burden to any country¡¯s health care system thus limiting its clinical acceptance. Furthermore, demographic change (aging),
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jr/2011/759764/