Stanford University School of Engineering - Allison Okamura is revolutionizing rehabilitation
The speaker highlights the evolution from surgical to rehabilitation robotics, focusing on soft, wearable devices that improve patient accessibility and control. Initial efforts in rehabilitation robotics adapted teleoperation paradigms from surgical robotics to enhance prosthetic control, allowing users to naturally control prosthetic limbs. This approach reduces energy costs and improves gait cycles. The speaker also discusses the development of soft exoskeletons that assist weak limbs, making rehabilitation more mobile and less expensive. Soft robotics, using lightweight materials and pneumatics, is revolutionizing rehabilitation by providing mobile, affordable solutions. Examples include inflatable devices that assist stroke patients by lifting arms against gravity, enabling more natural movement. The speaker also explores social touch through soft robotics, creating wearable devices that simulate social touch for mental health benefits. Additionally, passive tactile stimulation is shown to reduce spasticity in stroke patients, offering a non-invasive alternative to Botox. Finally, a mobile phone-based diagnostic tool for diabetic peripheral neuropathy is introduced, allowing home-based monitoring of tactile sensitivity.
Key Points:
- Rehabilitation robotics focuses on soft, wearable devices for better patient control and accessibility.
- Teleoperation paradigms from surgical robotics enhance prosthetic limb control, improving natural movement and reducing energy costs.
- Soft exoskeletons assist weak limbs, making rehabilitation more mobile and affordable.
- Social touch through soft robotics provides mental health benefits, simulating touch with wearable devices.
- A mobile phone-based tool for diabetic neuropathy allows home monitoring of tactile sensitivity.
Details:
1. 🎤 Introduction and Topic Shift
- The speaker previously discussed surgical robotics at an alumni day, highlighting its significance in modern medical practices.
- The introduction transitions to the main topic by establishing a foundational understanding of surgical robotics, which is key to the subsequent discussion.
- The speaker emphasizes the transformative impact of surgical robotics on healthcare delivery, setting the stage for deeper exploration.
- This segment underscores the importance of robotics in enhancing surgical precision and patient outcomes.
2. 🔧 From Surgical to Rehabilitation Robotics
- Surgical robotics has reached maturity, becoming standard practice in medical procedures, indicating a saturated market.
- Rehabilitation robotics is an emerging field that combines medicine and engineering to create assistive devices for patients.
- There is a strong focus on developing soft, wearable rehabilitation devices that prioritize patient accessibility and ease of use.
- Innovations in control mechanisms and the physical structure of these devices aim to enhance user experience and expand their application in therapeutic settings.
- The transition to rehabilitation robotics highlights the need for user-centric designs to meet diverse patient needs effectively.
3. 🤖 Prosthetic Control Through Teleoperation
3.1. Teleoperation in Surgery and Prosthetics
3.2. Challenges and Future Directions in Prosthetic Autonomy
4. 🦿 Enhancing Natural Prosthetic Use
- The study introduced a novel control mechanism for foot and ankle prosthetics, significantly enhancing user autonomy and natural movement.
- A key collaboration was formed with Steve Collins, who played a crucial role in developing a wrist exoskeleton. This device allows users to teleoperate ankle movements via wrist movements, enhancing control.
- This innovative control method improved walking naturalness and reduced energy expenditure for users, evidenced by user feedback and gait cycle studies.
- Participants were able to match desired gait cycles when controlling their own prosthesis, demonstrating the increased efficacy of this paradigm.
- The ultimate goal of achieving full autonomy in prosthetic use remains, necessitating further research to refine the technology and user experience.
5. 💪 Soft Robotics in Rehabilitation
- Teleoperation is an initial step towards integrating advanced motorized prostheses into broader use, enhancing human intent and environmental sensing capabilities.
- Soft robotics, unlike traditional rigid exoskeletons, uses lightweight materials and fluid-driven actuation to create more portable and less intrusive devices.
- Current exoskeleton robots are costly and typically used in clinical settings, limiting patient accessibility.
- Soft robotics offers cost-effective solutions that can be used outside clinical environments, enhancing patient access to rehabilitation tools.
- An example of soft robotics in practice is the use of soft robotic gloves that assist in hand rehabilitation, providing personalized therapy at home.
- Challenges in implementing soft robotics include ensuring durability and reliability of the materials used and integrating seamless human-machine interfaces.
6. 🌱 Soft-Growing Vine Robots
- Clinical rehab robots are integrated into clinics to aid patients with mobility, demonstrating that such technology is both practical and beneficial.
- An inflatable device can assist stroke patients by lifting their arms against gravity, facilitating daily activities and improving muscle synergy.
- Inflatable devices offer additional degrees of freedom, significantly enhancing rehabilitation outcomes by allowing more movement post-stroke.
- A lightweight, pneumatically powered exo-muscle enables patients to perform more activities with gravity support, showcasing effective rehabilitation aid.
- Soft-growing vine robots are constructed using plastic tubes that invert and extend, highlighting their potential for long-distance and versatile applications.
7. 🛌 Elder Care and Soft Robotics
- Vine robots, similar to elongated toroids, can perform tasks like popping through small holes, lifting heavy crates, and wrapping around the human body, as demonstrated in Stanford's videos.
- Recent developments involve creating vine robots in a sheet form to assist with elder care, specifically helping patients move from beds to wheelchairs without needing multiple nurses.
- These robots grow under patients, eliminating the need to slide materials underneath, which is particularly beneficial in home settings and aims to reduce reliance on nursing facilities.
- Initial tests with Hebrew Senior Life show promising results, indicating potential for widespread adoption in elder care facilities.
- Nursing staff have expressed excitement about the potential of these robots to simplify and improve patient handling.
- Challenges include ensuring safety standards, integrating into existing care protocols, and training staff effectively.
8. 👥 Social Touch and Haptic Feedback
- Social touch plays a vital role in reducing anxiety and stress before medical procedures, emphasizing its therapeutic value in healthcare.
- During the pandemic, the absence of social touch contributed to widespread mental health and social well-being issues, highlighting its critical importance.
- Meta Reality Labs Group's exploration of 'haptic emojis' represents an innovative attempt to replicate social cues through touch in digital communication.
- Initial experiments with voice coil motors for haptic feedback faced challenges like weight and overheating, yet successfully created a continuous stroke illusion through precise timing.
- The development of wearable devices to simulate continuous strokes using discreet touches presents potential applications for haptic sleeves in enhancing digital interactions.
9. 👚 Innovative Knitted Wearables
- Capacitive sensor arrays in wearables record diverse data types, analyzed via machine learning to map feedback on wearable sleeves.
- Social robotics and touch measurements assess emotional responses on a valence (sad to happy) and arousal (bored to excited) scale.
- Participant feedback, indicated with error bars, validates the wearable's effectiveness in conveying emotional cues.
- Transitioning from old technologies like voice coil motors, new methods use machine knitting and heat-fused materials for state change.
- Efforts aim for lightweight, breathable, and portable devices, enhancing portability with integrated pneumatics that avoid extra baggage.
- The device provides gentle, distributed contact, creating haptic illusions of strokes or social touch cues, enriching user interaction.
10. 🧤 Passive Tactile Stimulation for Stroke Recovery
- Soft robotics is incorporating new fabrication techniques like knitting for creating wearable devices.
- Wearable knitted devices can assist in rehabilitation, control robots, provide sports activity feedback, and sensory substitution for prosthetics.
- Passive tactile stimulation can improve muscle tone and control post-stroke, reducing spasticity with specific vibration patterns.
- A study showed that an eight-week use of a tactile glove improved a stroke patient's ability to open their hand.
- Participants were reluctant to return the gloves after the study, indicating high user satisfaction.
- Stanford is planning a larger clinical trial across multiple institutions to validate these findings.
11. 📱 Mobile Diagnostics for Diabetes
11.1. Touche Device for Spasticity
11.2. Mobile Device for Diabetic Neuropathy
12. 🙏 Conclusion and Acknowledgments
- The presentation concludes with gratitude towards students and sponsors, highlighting collaborative efforts.
- Acknowledgment of the potential impact of performing diagnostic tests at home, implying advancements in accessibility and convenience.