title: The ACT-4D: a novel rehabilitation robot for the quantification of upper limb motor impairments following brain injury.
abstract: Rehabilitation robots and other controlled diagnostic devices are useful tools to objectively quantify debilitating, post-stroke impairments. The goal of this paper is to describe the design of the ACT-4D rehabilitation robot which can quantify arm impairments during functional movement. The robot can instantly switch between a compliant mode that minimizes impedance of voluntary movement, and a stiff mode that applies controlled position/speed perturbations to the elbow (up to 75 Nm or 450 deg/s at 4500 deg/s(2)). It has a limited range of movement of the shoulder and elbow, which is further reduced when a damper is needed to enhance the positional stiffness of the base robot. In recent experiments, the ACT-4D has been used successfully for the quantification of elbow impairments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA. arnostienen@gmail.com
authors.forename: Arno H A
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Stienen
authors.forename: Jacob G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: McPherson
authors.forename: Alfred C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Schouten
authors.forename: Jules P A
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Dewald
mesh_terms: D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D034941:Upper Extremity / Q000502:physiology*