Exoskeleton for lower limb rehabilitation with two degrees of freedom aimed at patients with cerebrovascular accidents

• Main Authors: Diego Alexander Tibaduiza Burgos, Pedro Antonio Aya Parra, Maribel Anaya Veja
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de la Costa 2019-09-01
• Series: Inge-Cuc
• Subjects: exoskeleton; cerebrovascular accident; rehabilitation; lower limb; control; prototype
• Online Access: https://revistascientificas.cuc.edu.co/ingecuc/article/view/1975

Introduction− An exoskeleton can be understood as a mecha-tronic structure with the capacity to be coupled to an external extremity and which allows the development of the movements in the different articulations of the same one. These move-ments are developed with the support of actuators that define the degrees of freedom of this type of device. Objective− Given their versatility, these structures can be-come a useful tool in the assistance of rehabilitation work of human upper and lower limbs, and in some cases, such as this work for example, help patients with paralysis in their limbs for the development of activities as complex as human walking. Methodology−Although there are some important advances in this area, it is still in the research phase and many of the developments are not yet available or affordable for massive use in countries such as Colombia and Latin America in gen-eral. From this point of view and as a contribution to the de-velopment of this area in the country, this work presents the development of an active exoskeleton, which was designed to assist in the rehabilitation of patients who have had some type of sequelae as a result of a Brain Vascular Accident (stroke), also known as Stroke.Results− The article includes information on the modeling, design, control and construction of the exoskeletal device, as well as the development of preliminary tests aimed at show-ing its use in the development of repetition tests in the sagit-tal plane.Conclusions− The result of these analyses shows the poten-tial of the system developed for its application in this type of rehabilitation therapies.