Marlborough robotics company develops stroke rehabilitation device

Since this is only going to be available in the clinic or hospital, what is the number of hours of use needed to recover proper gait? If that number is not available it hasn't been tested thoroughly.  Or are you willing to let them do a slapstick job and get away with it? 

Marlborough robotics company develops stroke rehabilitation device

MARLBOROUGH - When ReWalks Robotics Inc. began selling its Rewalk exoskeleton device in the United States in 2014, its goal was to help spinal cord injury patients regain use of their legs.
With its newly introduced product, the ReStore Soft Exo-Suit, the Israeli company is looking to upgrade the stroke rehabilitation process for those learning to walk and run again.
The Restore Exo-Suit was officially cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in late June and the company, which has headquarters in Marlborough, has high hopes Restores will begin popping up in clinics throughout the world.
“We want to see it everywhere,” said Andy Dolan, Vice President of Marketing at ReWalk Robotics Inc. “It’s a business goal and a clinical goal to see as many patients to use it as possible.”
The suit is made up of multiple parts.
The Restore’s internals, including its electrical components and gears, is stored in a Waist Pack on a belt worn by the patient. Running down the patient’s lower half are cables that attach to the patient’s legs. Placed on either of the patient’s calves is a removable wrap decked out with a number of force and motion sensors.
Often during therapy, patients are outfitted with restrictive braces that limit their range of movement, according to Kathleen O’Donnell, ReWalk Senior Product, and Clinical Manager.
What sets this product apart from other stroke rehabilitation devices, is that it allows patients to have more dynamic assistance in moving forward and helps them regain movement of their ankles, she said.
Using the included handheld device, clinicians can pick one of three therapy modes, including Assist, Slack and Brace. The application also keeps data of the patient’s gait - the pace and manner in which they walk.

“This allows them to really practice some functional activities,” she said. “They cannot just be good at walking forward on a treadmill in a straight line, but they can really practice maneuvering around objects, starting and stopping and really get to a higher level of function after the recovery.”
In Assist mode, clinicians can directly assist the patient in moving forward. Using the motion sensor placed on the patient’s calf wrap, the app can identify in real time the amount of assistance needed in helping the patient move forward.
Slack Mode, on the other hand, allows for a more hands-off experience that allows the patient to move more freely without much assistance.
Brace Mode tightens and locks in the wrap’s cables to more directly assistance the patient’s movement.
The suit, which starts at around $30,000, won’t be available to purchase by individuals, but instead will be sold directly to clinics.
The company hopes to sell to potentially hundreds of thousands of clinics, given the large number of people that suffer from strokes each year and the product’s competitive price point, Dolan said.
Worldwide more than 15 million people suffer from a stroke each year, according to the World Stroke Organization. And In the United States, more than 795,000 people have a stroke every year, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Additionally, more than half of stroke survivors over the age of 65 in the United States suffer from a mobility related issue, the CDC said.
The ReStore didn’t start its life inside the walls of a Rewalk Robotics meeting room or facility, however. It was born out of a project developed out of Harvard University’s Wyss Institute For Biologically Inspired Engineering, according to O’Donnell.
In 2013 a group out of the Institute, which included O’Donnell, started work adapting technology that had been developed by The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to help soldiers walking long distances carry large loads.
The Institute wanted to make the technology work in a medical setting, and after meeting with different clinics throughout Boston, the stroke rehabilitation issue presented itself.
“We fundamentally were not in the business of helping people use their ankle again - that wasn’t something clinicians were able to focus on,” she said.
At the same time, ReWalk Robotics was looking to expand its market base, Dolan said.
In 2016, the Institute entered a business agreement with ReWalk to bring the product to market. As part of that deal, O’Donnell moved over from the Institute and now works at ReWalk Robotics full-time.

O’Donnell said that the company sees the ReStore ExoSuit has a platform it plans to develop over time.
“Now that the Wyss team has a solid understanding of all the complexities involved with interfacing with the human body, detecting different types of gait (and) when you should apply assistance and how much you should apply, it’s really exciting to see that there is so much potential,” she said.
Cesareo Contreras writes about environmental issues and technology for the Daily News. He can be reached at 508-626-3957or ccontreras@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @cesareo_r.