A robot system and virtual environment for therapeutic exercise in upper limb rehabilitation: Robotic exercise system

This study presents a virtual environment with a robot system for multi-joint rehabilitation exercise. This is a new application in the field of rehabilitation medicine and reflects the current trend of using robots in service fields. It is well known that exercise is indispensable for rehabilitation for damaged bones, joints, and muscles. The damaged parts are treated with surgery and/or medicine then exercise is prescribed to recover normal function. However, because current exercise machines provide only single-joint exercise, adjacent joints must be exercised separately. The reconfiguration of machines is known to be annoying and troublesome for therapists. These disadvantages can be overcome by introducing multi-joint exercise. The injured and neighboring joints can participate in exercise during multi-joint exercise. In part I, a virtual environment for multi-joint exercise in rehabilitation was presented. In part II, the RES (Robotic Exercise System) is studied as a force-reflecting system is discussed.