Development of a Bedside Rehabilitation Robot for Stroke Survivors.

Stroke has become one of the main causes of disability and death in the elderly population. A number of stroke survivors suffers from motor dysfunction, reducing their daily quality of life. Early intervention can effectively improve rehabilitative effectiveness. Therefore, it is necessary for patients to start rehabilitation training when they are in bed. In this paper, a bedside rehabilitation robot is proposed to assist patient’s lower limb rehabilitation exercise training from bedridden stage. A motor drives a double-link mechanism to achieve linear reciprocating motion for leg extension and retracting training. Two double-link mechanisms allow stroke patients to perform different training modes. A hill model of lower leg muscle was constructed to simulate the motor workload during linear reciprocating motion of patient lower limb. The preliminary experiments demonstrated the feasibility of the bedside rehabilitation robot for lower limb exercise training of stroke survivors.