Rehabilitation Research - Neurological Rehabilitation and Rehabilitation psychology (RERE-NEURO)

At a glance:

• Faculty: Physical Education & Physical Therapy
• Main areas of expertise:
  • Clinical evaluation on the effect of robot systems for neurological patients
  • Psychological aspects of acceptation of robotsystems and compliance
  • Measurement of energy use for robot-assisted walking

The effectiveness of robotic assistance for Neurological Rehabilitation and Rehabilitation Psychology

The Neurological Rehabilitation team of the Rehabilitation Research (RERE) department has 2 major research tracks:

• Research on the effectivity of research and treatment procedures of neurological physical therapy for people with central nervous system disorders
• Research on the psychological aspects of neurological revalidation

Robotic Rehabilitation

Robotic rehabilitation has been a strong focus for several years.

Using both robotic devices developed at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel as well as commercially available systems, RERE-NEURO focuses its research efforts on:

• Clinical evaluation of the effect of robot-systems for neurological patients
• Psychological aspects of acceptation of robot-systems and compliance
• Measurement of energy use for robot-assisted walking
• Use of social Robots to improve physical activity of patients

Robots and neurological rehabilitation, a perfect match

Gait rehabilitation robots are incorporated in a growing number of rehabilitation centres as part of the gait rehabilitation therapy of neurological patients. Potential benefits of robot-assisted gait training are:

• longer and more intensive training sessions to enhance rehabilitation outcome,
• a reduction in the number of therapists per patient,
• accurate, quantifiable assistance and/or movements
• the ability to monitor and steer the patient's rehabilitation process. 

Improvements in gait and balance related outcome measurements after robot-assisted gait training have been reported in the literature for patients with spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and stroke. We believe that in the future the impact of robot-assistance in neurological rehabilitation will increase enormously.

In het kort:

RERE-NEURO onderzoekt de effectiviteit van revalidatie en rehabilitatie robots en de psychologische aspecten ervan.

Some of our projects

AltaCro: Rehabilitation exoskeleton

ALTACRO rehabiliation exoskeleton: Automated Locomotion Training using an Actuated Compliant Robotic Orthosis

MIRAD: a lower limb assistive exoskeleton

IWT SBO MIRAD: an integrated Methodology to bring Intelligent Robotic Assistive Devices to the user, with a lower-limb exoskeleton as demonstrator.

SAFER: Rehabilitation Robot

A robot that can feel what a therapist feels when treating a patient, that can adjust the intensity of rehabilitation exercises at any time according to the patient's abilities and needs, and that can thus go on for hours without getting tired: it seems like fiction, and yet researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and imec have now finished a prototype that unites all these skills in one robot.