Advances in rehabilitation robotics. Human-friendly technologies on movement assistance and restoration for people with disabilities. (Q1887357)

The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually. From the preface: Different from the papers reported at the ICORR 2003, where specific problems and solutions of various subjects were discussed, the chapters of this book include original, reworked, and generalized materials that match to the style and objectives of the book. The book contains not only review articles on some advanced theoretical ideas in the rehabilitation robotics and results from some of the latest projects under development but also details on new advanced rehabilitation devices which have been recently transferred to the industry. A significant part of the book is devoted to the assessment of new rehabilitation technologies and evaluation of prototype devices with endusers. Safety of rehabilitation robots, historical remarks and perspective of rehabilitation robotics are also commented in the book. Also, different from many other books on rehabilitation engineering, the present volume includes a long chapter on robot-assisted neuro-rehabilitation that is considered as one of the latest trends in that area. One of the principal aims of this book is to promote dissemination of the information on the recent status of the rehabilitation robotics (RR). Our intention was to arrange the book in such a way that it is not just a simple collection of papers that would be of some interest to the specialists in a particular area, but rather, a book that contains some basics on the rehabilitation research and can help beginners to start their work in the same area, such as students and young researchers, or can help lecturers who want to introduce their students basics of the modern rehabilitation technology. In order to achieve this objective, most of the articles contain a detailed introduction to the problem to be discussed and an extended overview on the particular subject matter. The chapters that are contained in this book are authored by leading researchers in the field of rehabilitation robotics and represent a large part of the international research community. The book contains 27 chapters, which are grouped into 7 parts. The book begins with an introductory Part 1 devoted to description of the role of the rehabilitation robotics and some important issues of its development. The same part represents also some important milestones of the development of rehabilitation robotics. The chapters included in Part 2 cover three important issues on rehabilitation robotics for assistance of human movements: conceptions and experimental design, safety issues of the rehabilitation robots, and rehabilitation-robot evaluation. Some recent issues of the prosthetics and orthotics design are discussed in Part 3. Part 4 is concerned with the intelligent wheelchairs that can be considered as special mobile robots, designed to accomplish indoor user transportation. A recent trend in the design of assistive devices for mobility is the mechatronic devices for assistance in walking that sense the user's movement intentions and provide gentle gait support, giving independency and safety to the user. Some examples of such devices are given in Part 5. Part 6 is dedicated to robot-assisted neurorehabilitation. Examples of both upper limb robot mediated therapy and lower limb robot mediated therapy are commented in that part of the book. The final part of the book (Part 7) talks about the perspectives and trends of the rehabilitation robotics. The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually.