Good luck getting anything like this in your stroke hospital.The movie 'Robot and Frank' pretty well described personal robots, but they do need a moral filter.
http://www.hcanews.com/news/how-personalized-interactions-with-robots-could-help-stroke-victims
Personalizing interactions between humans and robots could help
rehabilitate stroke victims by boosting patient use of tailored physical
therapy programs, researchers have found.
A new study by researchers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
(BGU) in Israel has made a first step in developing an interactive
movement protocol that fits an individual’s preferences, with the
potential to make physical therapy more customized and effective.
“I think of it as a robotic revolution in rehabilitation,” said Dr. Shelly Levy-Tzedek, lead author of the report, published in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience
this month, and head of the Cognition, Aging, and Rehabilitation Lab in
BGU's Department of Physical Therapy. “The goal is to have a
rehabilitation protocol that includes the robot as a partner and as a
coach so that people can do their exercises at home.”
The findings were presented to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin this week during a visit to the BGU campus.
The study used a “mirror game”, usually played in improvisational
theater, in which an individual mimics the movement of the robot or vice
versa. “People report that when they play the mirror game they feel a
sense of togetherness and closeness. We’re the first to my knowledge to
play the mirror game between a human and a robot,” Levy-Tzedek said.
The robotic arm was fitted with an Xbox Kinect camera to track the
user’s arm. In the game, the user first led the robot, and then the
roles were reversed, and finally the pair was instructed to move
together.
The study found that the movement of the robot “primes” the human
movement. In other words, the participants tended to mimic the robot
behavior. “Priming seems to be a byproduct of the interaction, but it
actually could be used as a feature that we plan for patients. If we
want the patient to move in certain ways, we could accordingly program
the robot to move in certain ways,” Levy-Tzedek said.
Researchers also found that participants were evenly split in their
preference for either leading or following. This demonstrates a need for
robotic physical therapy routines to be responsive to what a patient is
most likely to find appealing and satisfying, Levy-Tzedek noted.
“Just like we have personalized medicine, which is tailored to the
particular person, it’s the same with human-robotic interactions. It’s
not just one size fits all,” Levy-Tzedek said. “Some people are more
competitive and like to lead, others less so. You can’t assume that one
type of interaction would fit everyone.”
Researchers also found that participants enjoyed tracing smoother,
recognizable movements like the infinity sign or circles than jerkier,
robotic ones like dribbling a ball or zig zags.
Levy-Tzedek doesn’t envision robotic therapists replacing their human
counterparts anytime soon. A robotic coach could, however, be invaluable
in encouraging exercises at home and bridging the time between meetings
with physical therapists.
“In that gap is where we come into the picture,” Levy-Tzedek said. “This
was a first step in that direction of using rehabilitation in a
gamified environment.”
Engaging patients in gamified physical therapy routines is important,
she said, because patients can often be reluctant to undertake the
routines outside of scheduled appointments. “The rehabilitation process
can be boring, painful, frustrating, and patients aren’t always
motivated enough to do that.”
Almost 800,000 people in the US have a stroke every year, according to
the American Stroke Association, or 1 every 40 seconds. Although
Levy-Tzedek and her team are first focusing on that demographic, a
robotic coach to encourage physically therapeutic routines could have
benefits for a much broader user base. There is a “wide variety of
conditions” that these findings could apply to, according to
Levy-Tzedek, and not necessarily individuals who have a physical
disorder.
“It turns out you can be an active couch potato. You can go to the gym
three times a week and still suffer from disorders associated with
sitting for long periods of time,” she added.
Sedentary behavior such as long hours sat at a desk or at home in front
of the TV is associated with an increased risk of cardio-metabolic
disease, all-cause mortality and a variety of physiological and
psychological problems, according to the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. Encouraging physical routines in the home could help combat that, Levy-Tzedek said.
Over recent years the cost of robotics has dropped dramatically, she
said, anticipating that as soon as a decade from now most patients would
be able to afford this technology.
Now if they could get a robot to do more than help stroke survivors move their arm. It's the object at the end of my arm that interests me.
ReplyDeleteBaby steps or maybe even worse, nano steps.
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