Muscle’s tone and muscular force are very important in the rehabilitative treatment of patients with exoskeletal leg prosthesis to increase bipedal posture and velocity gait: few reports cite the employment of isokinetic test and 6MWT in the treatment of this type of patients. These specific instruments are useful for the evaluation of transtibial rather transfemoral amputation patients.

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This article addresses prospective and retrospective responsibility issues connected with medical robotics. It will be suggested that extant conceptual and legal frameworks are sufficient to address and properly settle most retrospective responsibility problems arising in connection with injuries caused by robot behaviours (which will be exemplified here by reference to harms occurred in surgical interventions supported by the Da Vinci robot, reported in the scientific literature and in the press). In addition, it will be pointed out that many prospective responsibility issues connected with medical robotics are nothing but well-known robotics engineering problems in disguise, which are routinely addressed by roboticists as part of their research and development activities: for this reason they do not raise particularly novel ethical issues. In contrast with this, it will be pointed out that novel and challenging prospective responsibility issues may emerge in connection with harmful events caused by normal robot behaviours. This point will be illustrated here in connection with the rehabilitation robot Lokomat.

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It is well established how maintaining a correct body posture is absolutely fundamental to prevent skeleton and muscular pathologies. For instance the trunk’s postures assumed in a typical working day for who spends many hours in front of a pc-screen, or the typical motion behaviour in the classroom routine for the pupils, can even lead to some body handicaps. Accordingly, it appears obvious how the exact evaluation of assumed postures during the possible daily activities is the starting point for the adoption of related prevention expedient or the application of subsequent medical treatments. On the basis of our experience, this paper deals with the common adopted systems for measuring human postures, especially related to the torso, suggesting a complete classification scheme, and imaging new possible future scenarios for clinical applications.

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This paper describes an endoskeleton anthropomorphic biped robot design and construction. The endoskeleton structure is aimed for robot’s high power efficiency over its weight, but it demands unique structure and devices of the robot coping with the complexity. The gadgets newly developed for the robot such as a linear actuator, coupled link mechanism, inertia and Zero Moment Point(ZMP) sensors are described. The corresponding design procedure inevitably becomes sophisticated, so the powerful design tool to deal with this difficulty is utilized, and the way is explained. Feedback control scheme was established for its stable walking. Based on the outcome of the design, analysis, and simulation data, the actual robot was constructed and the paper shows its successful experimental results.

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Strokes affect thousands of people worldwide leaving sufferers with severe disabilities affecting their daily activities. In recent years, new rehabilitation techniques have emerged such as constraint-induced therapy, biofeedback therapy and robot-aided therapy. In particular, robotic techniques allow precise recording of movements and application of forces to the affected limb, making it a valuable tool for motor rehabilitation. In addition, robot-aided therapy can utilise visual cues conveyed on a computer screen to convert repetitive movement practice into an engaging task such as a game. Visual cues can also be used to control the information sent to the patient about exercise performance and to potentially address psychosomatic variables influencing therapy. This paper overviews the current state-of-the-art on upper limb robot-mediated therapy with a focal point on the technical requirements of robotic therapy devices leading to the development of upper limb rehabilitation techniques that facilitate reach-to-touch, fine motor control, whole-arm movements and promote rehabilitation beyond hospital stay. The reviewed literature suggest that while there is evidence supporting the use of this technology to reduce functional impairment, besides the technological push, the challenge ahead lies on provision of effective assessment of outcome and modalities that have a stronger impact transferring functional gains into functional independence.

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