Development of an arm robot for neurologic examination training

Neurologic examination takes an important role in diagnosis of the nerve system diseases. Neurologic medical staffs, especially the novices, need to be trained on this skill. There are many methodologies which can help to accumulate experiences, such as watching video, reading books, making use of the simulated patient (SP), and so on. However, the best way is to practice on the real patient. All the above methods have their own drawbacks such as lack of active interactions, limitation of multi-symptoms' reproducing, etc. To improve the training effectiveness, an arm robot is proposed in this paper for neurologic examination training as one part of the whole body patient robot named Waseda Kyotokagaku Patient (WKP). In this robot, various symptoms of the elbow force, biceps tendon reflex, involuntary action, and so on, are simulated and shown to the trainee. Finally, a set of experiments was carried out to verify our proposed mechanism and control system. Three neurologists with over 30 years' experience were invited to show their opinions on the reproductions of patients' symptoms, and to discuss the results. The effectiveness of this system was confirmed. The experimental results lead to the consideration that the approach is worth following in further research.