Robotic Home-Based Rehabilitation Systems Design: From a Literature Review to a Conceptual Framework for Community-Based Remote Therapy During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the higher susceptibility of post-stroke patients to infection calls for extra safety precautions. Despite the imposed restrictions, early neurorehabilitation cannot be postponed due to its paramount importance for improving motor and functional recovery chances. Utilizing accessible state-of-the-art technologies, home-based rehabilitation devices are proposed as a sustainable solution in the current crisis. In this paper, a comprehensive review on developed home-based rehabilitation technologies of the last 10 years (2011-2020), categorizing them into upper and lower limb devices and considering both commercialized and state-of-the-art realms. Mechatronic, control, and software aspects of the system are discussed to provide a classified roadmap for home-based systems development. Subsequently, a conceptual framework on the development of smart and intelligent community-based home rehabilitation systems based on novel mechatronic technologies is proposed. In this framework, each rehabilitation device acts as an agent in the network, using the internet of things (IoT) technologies, which facilitates learning from the recorded data of the other agents, as well as the tele-supervision of the treatment by an expert. The presented design paradigm based on the above-mentioned leading technologies could lead to the development of promising home rehabilitation systems, which encourage stroke survivors to engage in under-supervised or unsupervised therapeutic activities.

Keywords: COVID 19 pandemic; conceptual framework; home based rehabilitation; rehabilitation robotics; stroke rehabilitaiton.

FIGURE 1

Robotic gloves and exoskeleton devices for home-based hand rehabilitation: (A) SCRIPT project (Ates et al., 2017), (B) My-HERO (Yurkewich et al., 2020), (C) HERO (Yurkewich et al., 2019), and (D) X-Glove (Triandafilou, 2014).

FIGURE 2

Robotic exoskeleton and end-effector devices for home-based upper-limb rehabilitation: (A) SpringWear (Chen and Lum, 2018), (B) RUPERT (Tu et al., 2017), (C) eWrist (Lambelet et al., 2020), (D) Soft robotic elbow sleeve (Koh et al., 2017), (E) Portable device for wrist rehabilitation (Ambar et al., 2017), and (F) HomeRehab (Díaz et al., 2018).

FIGURE 3

Commercialized robotic devices for home-based upper-limb rehabilitation: (A) The Motus Hand (Butler et al., 2014), (B) IronHand (Radder et al., 2019), and (C) SaeboVR (Recover From Your Stroke With Saebo 2017).

FIGURE 4

Robotic devices for sitting/lying home-based lower-limb rehabilitation: (A) EMG-Controlled Knee Exoskeleton (Lyu et al., 2019), (B) Soft Robotic Sock (Low et al., 2019), and (C) LLR-Ro (Feng et al., 2017).

FIGURE 5

Robotic devices for in-home walking training: (A) AlterG Bionic Leg (Wright et al., 2020), (B) HAL lower-limb exoskeleton (Anneli Nilsson et al., 2014), and (C) SMA (Buesing et al., 2015).

FIGURE 6

The proposed conceptual framework for community-based home rehabilitation.