A Robotic Lower-Limb Exoskeleton for Rehabilitation

Abstract

The use of robotic lower-limb exoskeletons for rehabilitation of individuals with motor impairments is currently a tendency in several research groups, as they can be used to improve therapies in many applications in the field of physiotherapy. The main reasons are that they are safe, allow accurately controlling the range of movement of the individual’s lower-limbs, and can vary their speed and torque to make the movements, according to physiotherapist instructions. This work introduces the exoskeleton ALLOR (Advanced Lower Limb Orthoses for Rehabilitation), which was developed at UFES/Brazil, and presents an experimental protocol to be applied to rehabilitation of individuals with motor impairments. The proposed protocol is progressive and explores the different control strategies implemented in ALLOR: passive, mobilization, assisted, active and resisted, which are suitable for individual’s rehabilitation in three scenarios addressed in this work: stroke, total knee arthroplasty, and anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Clinical and functional parameters are also proposed to assess improvements in motion characteristics and its impact over general quality of life, locomotion and pain in the individuals.