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Abstract

This patent describes an 8+2 degrees of freedom (DOF) intelligent rehabilitation robot capable of controlling the shoulder, elbow, wrist and fingers individually and allowing functional arm movements with accompanying trunk and scapular motions. The rehabilitation robot uses the following integrated rehabilitation approach: 1) it has unique diagnostic capabilities to determine patient-specific multiple joint and/or multiple DOF biomechanical and neuromuscular changes; 2) it stretches the stiff joints/DOFs under intelligent control to loosen up the specific stiff joints and to reduce excessive cross-coupling torques/movements between the specific joints/DOFs, which can be done based on the above diagnosis for subject-specific treatment; 3) the patients practice voluntary reaching and some functional tasks to regain/improve their motor control capability, which can be done after the stretching loosened up the stiff joints; and 4) the outcome will be evaluated quantitatively at the levels of individual joints, multiple joints/DOFs, and the whole arm.

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First Claim