After many years of testing robotic therapy for stroke patients, MIT engineers are now looking at how this same technology may benefit people with cerebral palsy.
“”Robotic therapy can potentially help reduce impairment and facilitate neuro-development of youngsters with cerebral palsy,” says Hermano Igo Krebs, principal research scientist in mechanical engineering and one of the project’s leaders.”
Developers started with stroke patients, and then started looking at other areas where people might benefit. These included cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injury.
The concept is the same in all of these cases- That using robots to gently guide the limb while patients try to perform certain functions would help to rebuild function. Strange, isn’t that what therapists used to do? Do they still do that? If so, why the robots? OK, I’m not going to argue with the MIT gang. Robotics is very much in with the academic crowd these days so I’ll just go with the intellectual flow.
You can read the entire article at:
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2009/05/20/Robotic-therapy-for-cerebral-palsy.aspx
