Popeye The Robotic Arm Helps Stroke Victims
Trial test results in the Joural of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation show that shaking hands with a robotic arm could help stroke victims re-learn arm movements.
The robotic arm used for testing is called “Braccio di Ferro” or Iron Arm, also the Italian’s name for Popeye. The idea is to move a patient’s arm in a figure eight manner. The robot assists the figure eight movement by pulling if the movement is correct and resisting if the movement is incorrect.
The preliminary results with a small group of patients (10 chronic hemiplegic subjects) show that the scheme is robust and promotes a statistically significant improvement in performance indicators as well as a recalibration of the visual and proprioceptive channels. The results confirm that the minimally assistive, self-adaptive strategy is well tolerated by severely impaired subjects and is beneficial also for less severe patients.
Check out the full PDF of the study here.
