IIT Jodhpur researchers design robotic trainers for lower limb rehabilitation

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur researchers have designed robotic trainers that can be used in physiotherapy to treat lower limb disabilities.

The research team was led by Dr Jayant Kumar Mohanta, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Jodhpur.  Limb disability is a serious malady among Indians and is caused by age-related ailments, physical deformations, accidents, strokes, polio, etc. According to Census 2011, there are five million people with locomotor disabilities in India.

As per IIT, Jodhpur “Lower limb rehabilitation, especially for gait recovery, is time-consuming and sometimes involves multiple physiotherapists. Recently, there has been interest in designing robotic devices for lower limb rehabilitation. In robotic rehabilitation, the therapist only needs to provide supervision and assist with the setting up of the device. The understanding gleaned from this research work has been shared in a paper in the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems.”

The institute further said that most of the existing robotic systems treat patients by performing motions only in the sagittal plane – the imaginary plane that divides the body into the left and right parts. For complete limb movement, sagittal movement is not sufficient and movements in transverse (upper and lower body) and coronal (front and back) planes are also essential.

The IIT Jodhpur researchers have proposed a robot manipulator arrangement that is capable of providing motion to the ankle in all three planes, i.e., sagittal, transverse, and coronal. Complete rehabilitation is possible if the correct sequence of therapies is executed. “Robots will be able to do it without getting tired,” explained Dr Mohanta.

The robotic trainer is a brace or a wearable device like an exoskeleton that supports the leg. It is provided with a Cartesian (3-directional) parallel manipulator to perform the required limb therapeutic motions in the transverse, horizontal, lateral, and sagittal/longitudinal plane.