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Rehabilitation and Neuromuscular Robotics

Speaker
Ashish D. Deshpande
Date
Location
University of Houston
Abstract
Stroke is a leading cause of disability in the US and around the world, and the current
rehabilitation treatments are costly, labor-intensive and insufficient, leaving millions of stroke
survivors with life altering disabilities. Deshpande’s group has built a novel robot, called
Harmony Exoskeleton, for upper-body rehabilitation. Fundamental design and control
advanced have resulted in a number of features that make the Harmony Exoskeleton a
suitable tool for delivering early-stage subject-specific treatment, for advancing the science of
neuro-recovery and for assessing disability and recovery outcomes. The talk will discuss these
key features and also the results from preliminary testing with stroke patients. And the
progress on the commercialization path toward bringing this rehabilitation robot in the hands
to therapists to treat patients will also be presented.