New Zealand Rehabilitation Association, Inc.

Ok. I admit it.  I nicked this link off the Ouch! website - but it was so cool I had to share it.  Apparently some Japanese scientists have developed a robotic exoskeleton aimed at assisting people with physical disabilities to move around.  The suit straps onto the body, and adds strength to voluntary movement.  It’s a little unclear however from the press releases that I’ve read to date whether this robotic exoskeleton works with completely paretic muscles.  I suspect some degree of voluntary movement is required, unless they’ve managed to tap straight into one’s frontal lobes – which would be a hugely significant (if somewhat ethically questionable) advance.  Still, it does make you wonder what the future of robotics in rehabilitation holds.  Work is progressing towards making these robotic exoskeletons much smaller and lighter – with the eventual aim of being able to wear them under one’s clothes.

This news item reminded me of Stefan Schultz’s presentation at our recent rehabilitation conference in Rotorua last February.  Stefan is from the Institute for Applied Computer Sciences at Froschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany, and he presented the latest advances in a similar kind of technology for upper limb amputation.  Stefan and his colleagues have been working on more realistic, robotic upper limb prostheses, capable of a wide range of functional hand movements.  As the technology becomes more sophisticated, the prostheses are becoming increasingly ‘life like’.

Cost is obviously the most significant consideration for this type of technology.  The Japanese robotic exoskeleton is commercially available (in Japan at any rate) for 70,000 yen a month – that’s about $800 NZ dollars a month (at the time of writing).  So, while comparable to the costs of a high level of carer support, the financial implications of this technology does make one pause to consider whether the benefits make the costs worth it.  So… Is it? Well?!!  I searched Medline very briefly for articles on robotic exoskeleton and found a small handful of papers.  The vast majority of these were about the science behind the engineering required for this type of technology, with a few investigations into its application to therapy.  I’ve found no articles as of yet which quantify the impact of using robot exoskeleton on daily functioning and quality of life.  The science is just too new.  Thus if a health funding organisation was to ask me to justify spending $800 a month on a robot exoskeleton for someone with stroke for instance, I would have to say that there is insufficient evidence to justify its use at present.  But maybe in the future, who knows?