A Novel Reconfigurable Ankle/Foot Rehabilitation Robot

Abstract

This paper presents a novel reconfigurable ankle rehabilitation robot to cover various rehabilitation exercise modes. The designed robot can allow desired ankle and foot motions including toe and heel raising as well as traditional ankle rotations since the mechanism can generate relative rotation between the fore and rear platforms as well as pitch and roll motions. In addition, the robotic device can be reconfigured from a range of motion (ROM)/strengthening exercise device to a balance/proprioception exercise device by simply incorporating additional plate. Further, the action of the device is two folded in the sense that while a patient’s foot is fastened firmly to the ROM/strengthening device for task specific training, s/he can also stand on the balance/proproception device. The suggested ankle rehabilitation robot is expected to substitute not only the traditional therapy in various exercise modes but also supply the advanced functional exercises.