Italian engineers have developed a robotic rehabilitation platform that can analyze a patient’s biometrics to predict their risk of injury, and then guide them through exercises designed to counter that risk.
Designed at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), the device, called Hunova, has received CE certification for Europe and is seeking approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It was developed over five years and is now being marketed by spin-off company Movendo Technology.
“It is basically a robotic device aimed at rehabilitating all the body districts going from the ankle to the knee, pelvis, hip, trunk, and the vestibular system. And it can be used for a number of pathologies; going from orthopedics to neurology to geriatrics, and to sports,” Movendo Technology’s Simone Ungaro told Reuters.
Firstly, Hunova collects data on patient biomechanics, evaluating an individual’s condition and risk from a variety of injuries. Patients can either sit or stand on the platform depending on the body region being assessed.
Working alongside physiotherapists, Hunova then guides patients through a series of custom-made exercises to strengthen and condition parts of the body.
“This device is able to profile the biomechanics parameter of each patient and find out what is the best strategy to complete a certain target of recovery depending on the pathology we’re talking about. So the physiotherapist can get all the data, because at the end of each session there is a report. And during the session, the therapist and the patient can work together through the machine to identify what is the best way of following the rehabilitation process,” added Ungaro.
Two sensor-filled electromagnetic platforms at feet and seat level use integrated force sensors to adjust interaction with the patient so they feel resistance feedback from the device during exercises. A wireless chest monitor is strapped to the patient to help Hunova precisely evaluate their torso movement.
The exercises that Hunova suggests are presented as interactive video-games, such as guiding a car around a track by tensing and flexing the body’s trunk while seated, or holding a moving cross-hair on a target by balancing on the moving platform while standing.
The primary assessment Hunova carries out also pinpoint parts of the body that could be at risk of injury. Ungaro said this could be particularly important when assessing elderly people in order to reduce their risk of falling.
“We will be able to predict the risk of fall of elderly people. That’s the first phase of the project, which is very much based on the evaluation side. The second phase would be using the robot to make all the rehabilitation protocols in order to avoid and lower that risk,” he said. “It’s evaluation-intervention, analysis and robotics, all combined together that makes Hunova a very unique device on the marketplace.”
Ungaro added that each Hunova platform costs around 100,000 euros (106,000 USD), with the first production facility under development in Genoa.
Hunova is already in use in several hospitals and rehabilitation centres in Italy. The first clinical trials are now underway in the US, with the developers saying FDA approval is expected in April. (Reuters)
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