Evaluation of an assistive upper-limb exoskeleton for severely impaired patients (original) (raw)

Recent literature analysis showed the need for upper-limb assistive devices suitable for patients affected by neuromuscular pathologies. This work presents a novel upper-limb robotic exoskeleton specifically designed for muscular dystrophy patients. The exoskeleton is a 4 degrees of freedom robotic device that supports movement at the shoulder and elbow. The system can be controlled by the user in the task space by driving a joystick or by means of speech recognition. The device has been field-tested on 5 dystrophic patients with the goal of evaluating performances, comfort, safety and usability of the device during daily life activities. Quantitative results on upper-limb functional performances with and without the exoskeleton are presented showing beneficial effects. Usability of the device has been evaluated as good, suggesting promising future developments.