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The purpose of this paper is to present the static and dynamic characteristics of the rehabilitation joint.

The rehabilitation joint is driven by pneumatic muscle actuators (PMAs). Rehabilitation robot is normally composed of several rehabilitation joints. The static and dynamic characteristics of the rehabilitation joint are important for control of the rehabilitation robot. Analysis and modeling of the rehabilitation joint is based on experiments.

The static model of the PMA is obtained by the method of curve fitting and achieved better precision compared to the existing representative models. A second‐order model fits the dynamic characteristic of the rehabilitation joint better than a first order one.

The rehabilitation joint and the patient's joint combine to make an independent system, and the unstable factors of the patient's joint make it difficult in precisely modeling the rehabilitation joint.

The characteristics of the rehabilitation joint are all based on the data that were recorded in a series of with experiments, the same with modeling of the rehabilitation joint.

This paper reports key messages for policy makers, drawn from a workshop held for local health and social care staff with responsibilities for running or setting up short‐term residential rehabilitation for elderly and disabled people. The aim was to learn from each other's experiences and to provide a nuts‐and‐bolts framework for the development of local joint investment plans.

This paper draws on the metaphor of “magic” to explore the role of dialogue conferences and subsequent activities as a tool for organizational development and change. The metaphor is introduced and elaborated as a means of allowing critical reflection on action research projects.

In the empirical setting of a change project in a regional health authority in Sweden, researchers designed and facilitated a development coalition for introducing integrated care. This required an action research intervention that supported the establishment of new relationships and developmental practices across both organizational and professional boundaries.

The unfolding of developmental processes set in train by dialogue conferences are shown as being a dynamic process of magic underpinned by the principles of democratic dialogue.

By drawing attention to the three keywords of development, participation and dialogue three sites have been identified for critical reflection and reflexivity in action research. Magic is argued as an activity wherein the seemingly impossible is made to happen in these areas; equally it can be an activity of simple illusion whereby appearance is at odds with reality.

The purpose of this paper is to design an exoskeleton robot and present a corresponding rehabilitation training method for patients in different rehabilitation stages.

This paper presents a lightweight seven-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) cable-driven exoskeleton robot that is wearable and adjustable. After decoupling joint movement caused by a cable-driven mechanism, active rehabilitation training mode and passive rehabilitation training mode are proposed to improve the effect of rehabilitation training.

Simulations and experiments have been carried out, and the results validated the feasibility of the proposed mechanism and methods by a fine rehabilitative effect with different persons.

This paper designed a 7-DOF cable-driven exoskeleton robot that is suitable for patients of different body measurements and proposed the active rehabilitation training mode and passive rehabilitation training mode based on the cable-driven exoskeleton robot.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new design for a finger and wrist rehabilitation robot. Furthermore, a fuzzy sliding mode controller has been designed to control the system.

Following an introduction regarding the hand rehabilitation, this paper discusses the conceptual and detailed design of a novel wrist and finger rehabilitation robot. The robot provides the possibility of rehabilitating each phalanx individually which is very important in the finger rehabilitation process. Moreover, due to the model uncertainties, disturbances and chattering in the system, a fuzzy sliding mode controller design method is proposed for the robot.

With the novel design for moving the DOFs of the system, the rehabilitation for the wrist and all phalanges of fingers is done with only two actuators which are combined in one device. These features make the system a good choice for home rehabilitation. To control the robot, a fuzzy sliding mode controller has been designed for the system. The fuzzy controller does not affect the coefficient of the sliding mode controller and uses the overall error of the system to make a control signal. Thus, the dependence of the controller to the model decreases and the system is more robust. The stability of the system is proved by the Lyapunov theorem.

The paper provides a novel design of a hand rehabilitation robot and a controller which is used to compensate the effects of the uncertain parameters and chattering phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel wearable rehabilitation robotic hand driven by Pneumatic Muscle‐Torsion Spring (PM‐TS) for finger therapy. PM has complex nonlinear dynamics, which makes PM modelling difficult. To realize high‐accurate tracking for the robotic hand, an Echo State Network (ESN)‐based PID adaptive controller is proposed, even though the plant model is unknown.

To drive a single joint of rehabilitation robotic hand, the paper proposes a new PM‐TS actuator comprising a Pneumatic Muscle (PM) and a Torsion Spring (TS). Based on the novel actuator, a wearable robotic hand is designed. By employing the model‐free approximation capability of ESN, the RLSESN based PID adaptive controller is presented for improving the trajectory tracking performance of the rehabilitation robotic hand. An ESN together with Recursive Least Square (RLS) is called a RLSESN, where the ESN output weight matrix is updated by the online RLS learning algorithm.

Practical experiments demonstrate the validity of the PM‐TS actuator and indicate that the performance of the RLSESN based PID adaptive controller is better than that of the conventional PID controller. In addition, they also verify the effectiveness of the proposed rehabilitation robotic hand.

A new PM‐TS actuator configuration that uses a PM and a torsion spring for bi‐directional movement of joint is presented. By utilizing the new PM‐TS actuator, a novel wearable rehabilitation robotic hand for finger therapy is designed. Based on the unknown plant model, the RLSESN_PID controller is proposed to attain satisfactory performance.

The purpose of this paper is to design and develop a new robotic device for the rehabilitation of the upper limbs. The authors are focusing on a new symmetrical robot which can be used to rehabilitate the right upper limb and the left upper limb. The robotic arm can be automatically extended or reduced depending on the measurements of the patient's arm. The main idea is to integrate electrical stimulation into motor rehabilitation by robot. The goal is to provide automatic electrical stimulation based on muscle status during the rehabilitation process.

The developed robotic arm can be automatically extended or reduced depending on the measurements of the patient's arm. The system merges two rehabilitation strategies: motor rehabilitation and electrical stimulation. The goal is to take the advantages of both approaches. Electrical stimulation is often used for building muscle through endurance, resistance and strength exercises. However, in the proposed approach the electrical stimulation is used for recovery, relaxation and pain relief. In addition, the device includes an electromyography (EMG) muscle sensor that records muscle activity in real time. The control architecture provides the ability to automatically activate the appropriate stimulation mode based on the acquired EMG signal. The system software provides two modes for stimulation activation: the manual preset mode and the EMG driven mode. The program ensures traceability and provides the ability to issue a patient status monitoring report.

The developed robotic device is symmetrical and reconfigurable. The presented rehabilitation system includes a muscle stimulator associated with the robot to improve the quality of the rehabilitation process. The integration of neuromuscular electrical stimulation into the physical rehabilitation process offers effective rehabilitation sessions for neuromuscular recovery of the upper limb. A laboratory-made stimulator is developed to generate three modes of stimulation: pain relief, massage and relaxation. Through the control software interface, the physiotherapist can set the exercise movement parameters, define the stimulation mode and record the patient training in real time.

There are certain constraints when applying the proposed method, such as the sensitivity of the acquired EMG signals. This involves the use of professional equipment and mainly the implementation of sophisticated algorithms for signal extraction.

Functional electrical stimulation and robot-based motor rehabilitation are the most important technologies applied in post-stroke rehabilitation. The main objective of integrating robots into the rehabilitation process is to compensate for the functions lost in people with physical disabilities. The stimulation technique can be used for recovery, relaxation and drainage and pain relief. In this context, the idea is to integrate electrical stimulation into motor rehabilitation based on a robot to obtain the advantages of the two approaches to further improve the rehabilitation process. The introduction of this type of robot also makes it possible to develop new exciting assistance devices.

The proposed design is symmetrical, reconfigurable and light, covering all the joints of the upper limbs and their movements. In addition, the developed platform is inexpensive and a portable solution based on open source hardware platforms which opens the way to more extensions and developments. Electrical stimulation is often used to improve motor function and restore loss of function. However, the main objective behind the proposed stimulation in this paper is to recover after effort. The novelty of the proposed solution is to integrate the electrical stimulation powered by EMG in robotic rehabilitation.

Currently, rehabilitation medical care is expensive, requires a large number of rehabilitation therapist and which can only limit in the fixed location. In addition, there is a lack of research on the structure optimization and theoretical analysis of soft actuators for hand rehabilitation. In view of the problems above, this paper aims to propose a cheap, portable, wearable soft multiple joints rehabilitation glove.

First, this paper determined the hyperelastic constitutive model by material tensile test. Second, the soft actuator’s internal longitudinal section shape was optimized through the comparison of three diverse chamber structures. Meanwhile, the motion model of the soft actuator is established by the finite element model analysis method. Then, this paper established the constitutive model of the soft actuator according to the torque equilibrium equation and analyzed the relationship between the soft actuator’s bending angle and the input air pressure. This paper has verified that the theoretical model is correct through the soft actuator bending test. Finally, rehabilitation gloves were manufactured according to the model and the rehabilitation performance and grasping ability of gloves were verified through experiments.

The optimization results show that the internal semicircular cavity has better performance. Then, the actuator performance is better after adding the external arc structure and optimizing the physical dimension. The experimental results show that the trajectory of the actuator conforms to the mathematical model and rehabilitation gloves can meet the needs of rehabilitation treatment.

Rehabilitation gloves made of actuators can help patients with hand dysfunction in daily rehabilitation training. Then, it can also assist patients with some fine and complicated hand movements.

This paper proposes a new type of soft rehabilitation glove, which is composed of new soft actuators and adapting pieces. The new actuator is small enough to be fitted to the knuckle of the glove to move each joint of the finger.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a device to support rehabilitation of a patient's upper limb motion.

The device has five degrees of freedom by virtue of its link mechanism. It consists of Joints 1‐5. Apparatus for use in so‐called welfare applications, such as this device, must be safe, flexible, and lightweight. A pneumatic cylinder, arranged and integrated with the device, was used to operate it. The device has two rehabilitation modes corresponding to different rehabilitation contents. The first mode is the muscular recovery and movable region expansion mode (Mode A). The second mode is a practical function recovery mode (Mode B). A compliance control and a position control system are applied for those modes.

By arranging the pneumatic cylinder optimally, results show that the device has compact and wide operating range and compliance‐control performance for Mode A. Position‐control performance for Mode B was verified experimentally. Moreover, the paper evaluates the effectiveness of the device and its control system through electromyography, which confirms that the developed device can support a patient's rehabilitation training.

The device has a simple link mechanism and an attached pneumatic cylinder, thereby constituting a lightweight and compact mechanism. The device has two rehabilitation modes corresponding to different rehabilitation contents. Using the device, a patient can conduct muscular power recovery training, movable region expansion training, and upper limb practical function recovery training.

Upper-limb joint kinematics are highly complex and the kinematics of rehabilitation exoskeletons fail to reproduce them, resulting in hyperstaticity and human–machine incompatibility. The purpose of this paper is to design and develop a compatible exoskeleton robot (Co-Exos II) to address these problems.

The configuration synthesis of Co-Exos II is completed using advanced mechanism theory. A compatible configuration is selected and four passive joints are introduced into the connecting interfaces based on optimal configuration principles. A Co-Exos II prototype with nine degrees of freedom (DOFs) is developed and still owns a compact structure and volume. A new approach is presented to compensate the vertical glenohumeral (GH) movements. Co-Exos II and the upper arm are simplified as a guide-bar mechanism at the elevating plane. The theoretical displacements of passive joints are calculated by the kinematic model of the shoulder loop. The compatible experiments are completed to measure the kinematics of passive joints.

The compatible configuration of the passive joints can effectively reduce the gravity influences of the exoskeleton device and the upper extremities. The passive joints exhibit excellent compensation effect for the GH joint movements by comparing the theoretical and measured results. Passive joints can compensate for most GH movements, especially vertical movements.

Co-Exos II possesses good human–machine compatibility and wearable comfort for the affected upper limbs. The proposed compensation method is convenient to therapists and stroke patients during the rehabilitation trainings.