Walking with robots

SUFFERING from a stroke can change your life forever and, in many instances, forces you to relearn how to function with everyday tasks. Patients are quite often left struggling to get through intensive therapy sessions to help them be mobile and walk again.

By combining textile science with robotics, Irish biomedical engineer Dr Conor Walsh and a team of experts at Harvard Biodesign

Lab have come up with an idea to revolutionise how patients suffering from trauma can learn to walk again. They conceived an idea for wearable robots, specifically to help patients through their recovery process. Dr Walsh says, however, the tool isn’t meant to be a replacement for traditional rehabilitation methods, but rather to act as a means to help accelerate and extend the therapy.

The team developed a special exosuit that is light and elastic, and boasts textile and mechanised components, all of which together help the wearer’s damaged muscles, nerves, tendons and joints to recover. The exosuit consists of tiny but powerful motors, pulleys, cables, movement sensors and software in order to help patients make small corrections to their movement and move in a more natural way.

Dr Walsh’s experiences at Harvard, together with his team, helped him to develop the idea. Prior to that, working as both a developer and test subject, he’d gained beneficial first-hand knowledge working with rigid exoskeletons. ‘I saw that if you

had a softer, lighter suit that accentuated the right actions, was comfy to wear and didn’t hinder you, it could have huge biomedical applications,’ explains Dr Walsh.

He says the exosuit will not only be able to help stroke patients, but also those with impaired mobility, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis as well as the elderly.

It’s predicted that the exosuits will be ready for commercial use in approximately three years.