A Modular Mobile Robotic Platform to Assist People with Different Degrees of Disability

Robotics to support elderly people in living independently and to assist disabled people in carrying out the activities of daily living independently have demonstrated good results. Basically, there are two approaches: one of them is based on mobile robot assistants, such as Care-O-bot, PR2, and Tiago, among others; the other one is the use of an external robotic arm or a robotic exoskeleton fixed or mounted on a wheelchair. In this paper, a modular mobile robotic platform to assist moderately and severely impaired people based on an upper limb robotic exoskeleton mounted on a robotized wheel chair is presented. This mobile robotic platform can be customized for each user’s needs by exploiting its modularity. Finally, experimental results in a simulated home environment with a living room and a kitchen area, in order to simulate the interaction of the user with different elements of a home, are presented. In this experiment, a subject suffering from multiple sclerosis performed different activities of daily living (ADLs) using the platform in front of a group of clinicians composed of nurses, doctors, and occupational therapists. After that, the subject and the clinicians replied to a usability questionnaire. The results were quite good, but two key factors arose that need to be improved: the complexity and the cumbersome aspect of the platform.

Comparisons of Auditory Brainstem Responses Between a Laboratory and Simulated Home Environment

Purpose Miniaturization of digital technologies has created new opportunities for remote health care and neuroscientific fieldwork. The current study assesses comparisons between in-home auditory brainstem response (ABR) recordings and recordings obtained in a traditional lab setting. Method Click-evoked and speech-evoked ABRs were recorded in 12 normal-hearing, young adult participants over three test sessions in (a) a shielded sound booth within a research lab, (b) a simulated home environment, and (c) the research lab once more. The same single-family house was used for all home testing. Results Analyses of ABR latencies, a common clinical metric, showed high repeatability between the home and lab environments across both the click-evoked and speech-evoked ABRs. Like ABR latencies, response consistency and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were robust both in the lab and in the home and did not show significant differences between locations, although variability between the home and lab was higher than latencies, with two participants influencing this lower repeatability between locations. Response consistency and SNR also patterned together, with a trend for higher SNRs to pair with more consistent responses in both the home and lab environments. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of obtaining high-quality ABR recordings within a simulated home environment that closely approximate those recorded in a more traditional recording environment. This line of work may open doors to greater accessibility to underserved clinical and research populations.

LUMBAR KINEMATIC PATTERN AMONG ADULTS WITH LOW BACK PAIN: A STUDY PROTOCOL

Non-Specific Low back pain (NSLBP) is associated with lumbar spine kinematics and curvature changes. However, there is limited information regarding lumbar spine kinematics and curvature in normal daily living when both static and dynamic postures are adopted interchangeably during extended periods. The aim of this study is to evaluate the differences in lumbar kinematic patterns and curvature when adopting various static and dynamic postures over an extended period of time among adults with acute, chronic and without NSLBP. Lumbar kinematic patterns and curvature of adults with chronic and acute NSLBP will also be reassessed at six weeks and three months follow-up. This is a cross-sectional and prospective design study. Seventy-two adults aged between 20 and 45 years will be recruited for three study groups (acute, chronic and without NSLBP). Kinematic parameters that include a lumbar range of movements, velocities, accelerations and lumbar curvature changes will be assessed for a continuous two-hour period using an inertial measurement system. During the two hours of monitoring, participants will be required to perform a list of functional tasks in a simulated home environment. Participants will be free to adopt any postures as in a normal home/work environment during performing these tasks. Lumbar curvature angles and kinematic patterns of lumbar spine will be analysed and compared between three groups. This study will add to the knowledge regarding lumbar curvature and kinematic patterns of lumbar spine when adopting various static and dynamic postures interchangeably over an extended period among adults with NSLBP.