ORTE is a robotic orthotics or exoskeleton for the human upper-limb designed as an aide for the rehab therapist. Thanks to a sophisticated musculoskeletal model of the arm, the practitioner can evaluate the condition of the patient, gaining valuable insight for the diagnosis process, and then create a customized rehabilitation routine for each patient that will be guided by the robot, monitoring progress during execution.
ORTE will significantly improve productivity in the rehab room; the therapist will be able to treat more than one patient simultaneously, allowing him to focus its more valuable resource, time, to the most delicate parts of the therapy where his acumen is clearly superior. Besides, ORTE can perform the most burdensome parts of the session, typically initial ones, reducing physical overload of practitioners.
ORTE is an innovative medical robotic solution: a powered exoskeleton that aims to help PMR physicians and physiotherapists to:
– Gather a wealth of information and data about the upper-limb condition they currently lack
– Shorten times needed to evaluate functional consequences of upper-limb musculoskeletal injuries or upper-limb nerve traumas
– Determine the most appropriate treatment for each patient
– Reduce direct healthcare costs allowing to attend more patients per session
– Monitor rehabilitation progression in a reliable and precise way
– Improve training of new specialists and professionals
Human musculoskeletal system around the shoulder is an extremely sophisticated and interrelated system that can produce a variety of complex movements. A lot of them are part of our daily living, such as eating and bathing. Shoulder injuries are, unfortunately, unexceptional: excessive stretching, overexertion, strains, accidents, sports injuries, surgeries, … are common shoulder damages. And they cause dissabilities, lower quality of life and loss of working days.
In diagnostic mode, ORTE will feed kinematic data of patient’s performance of a set of movements into the 3D model, that will provide information about the musculoskeletal system condition and its capacity for recovery.
The professional can perform simulations to obtain insights about the effects of different exercises to find the best therapeutic approach.
Specific treatments should be depicted in each case, including rehabilitation therapy through prescribed exercises for the shoulder to regain its mobility. This therapies are painfully expensive, time consuming and subject to therapist’s experience and skills. On therapy mode, ORTE is a solution to these issues.
