Robot Offers Home Rehabilitation

Researchers have shown that robotic systems controlled by the user’s own brain activity can help patients recovering from stroke and other disabling injuries. However, demonstrations have taken place in highly controlled settings and recently the systems have been approved for use in clinics or in patient’s homes.

An engineer from the University of Houston http://www.uh.edu is leading a team of researchers, healthcare providers, and industry to fast-track the commercialization of a groundbreaking robotic rehabilitation system.

Rehabilitation systems work by capturing electrical activity in the brain which can be translated into movement through the use of algorithms that are able to decode movement intent from patterned brain activity.

Early versions of the brain-computer interface relied on a skull cap embedded with sensors, but it is thought that any system geared to help in the rehabilitation process will have to be simpler for patients to use.

A $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s “Partnerships for Innovation Program (PFI) https://www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/pfi/index.jap, will be used to build a system that can be approved for FDA that is sturdy, simple, and inexpensive enough for stroke patients to use at home.

The new NSF PFI program allows academic innovators to advance prior NSF-funded research by developing technologies that show promise for commercialization and societal impact. These technology development efforts benefit greatly from industry and academic collaborations that are needed to accelerate the transition of technology from the academic lab to the marketplace.

Other partners on the research project include National Instruments Corp. http://www.ni.com   and Harmonic Bionics http://harmonicbionics.com both based in Austin. Harmony Bionics will produce the robotic device, while National Instruments will provide a compact embedded hardware solution for the brain computer interface system, plus provide technical assistance.

In addition, the University of Houston’s, Office of Intellectual Property Management will help with commercialization. TIRR Memorial Hermann http://tirr.memorialhermann.org, a rehabilitation hospital will test the system in their clinic before patients use the system at home.