Socially Assistive Robot Enabled Personalised Care for People with Dementia in Australian Private Homes

Australia’s population is ageing and a large number of people are living in their own homes. Motivated by design science as the research methodology, the authors in this paper embark the research on designing, implementing, trialling and evaluating robot enabled user-centred care for people with dementia in home-based settings. Given the importance of pursuing person-centred care practice, this research involves marrying personhood in health care with socially assistive robotics to the designs of social robot enabled person-centred care services. We have conducted first ever longitudinal robotic trials through real deployments in Australian private dwellings to evaluate the impact of the designed socially assistive robots on older people with dementia. The data analyses have been performed through both interactional data (with 2044 times of interaction and a total of 167 hours of usage) and quality of robot experience survey. The descriptive analysis of interactional data show that the designed socially assistive robot enabled care system has facilitated breaking the technology barrier of people with dementia, positively proving sensory enrichment to participants and provided respires to the participants’ carers. The quality of robot experience survey statistics indicate the participants had positive experience with their robot

Exoskeletons to enhance human capabilities and support rehabilitation: a state of the art

El presente artículo presenta una revisión bibliográfica sobre el diseño de exoesqueletos y las diferentes aplicaciones que estos pueden tener en la vida humana. Se exponen diferentes desarrollos, resaltando las partes más importantes de cada uno y prestando especial atención al área de la ingeniería electrónica presente en estas estructuras. Además, se realiza un agrupamiento de los diseños, dependiendo de la zona corporal para la cual se ha construido el exoesqueleto o de la finalidad del estudio realizado. Finalmente, se presentan desarrollos y estudios que buscan utilizar las señales mioeléctricas como parte fundamental del sistema exoesquelético.This paper presents a literature review about exoskeletons and their applications in human life. Different developments highlighting the most important parts of each of them, and paying particular attention to the area of electronic engineering related to these structures, are shown. Also, a grouping of the different kinds of structures is made depending on the area of the human body to which the exoskeleton was intended to or depending on the purpose of the research. Finally, various studies and developments which use mioelectric signals as a fundamental part of the system are presented

Bioinspired Knee Joint for a Power-Assist Suit

Movement of the knee joint of a human includes rolling and sliding. There also exist rotations in the frontal and horizontal planes. To assist the standing movement of a human, we developed a bioinspired knee joint and torque adjustment mechanism. We evaluated the motion, torque characteristics, and stress of the developed mechanism. This joint allows deep flexion of the knee with small resistance for both the user and the device. In addition, in spite of 33% error in deep flexion, the measured torque over less than 120 degrees fits the designed torque curve. We conducted evaluation tests for a human subject. The electromyogram (EMG) of musculus rectus femoris was measured during standing with or without the assistance. The result shows 30% and 63% reduction with the assistance from 100-degree and 80-degree knee angles, respectively. In addition, the proposed device reduced up to 80% of stress in the frontal plane during standing

An interaction torque control improving human force estimation of the rehab-exos exoskeleton

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