Our Prototypes

Through years of research, the S. Anna Institute with various partners has developed the devices described below, which are used daily in our gyms by highly specialised personnel. Their use, alongside the usual rehabilitation techniques, as part of customised rehabilitation programmes, enables a unique rehabilitation offer.

Aramis

For the purely rehabilitation phase, a double exoskeleton system for rehabilitation of the upper limb, called Aramis, was designed and built.

Aramis is a robo-mechatronic system consisting of two exoskeletons, with 5 active degrees of freedom, for the motor rehabilitation and functional recovery of stroke patients.

The kinematic chain of the exoskeleton was reproduced from the natural movements of the human arm.

The latest version of Aramis is the third evolution realised within the framework of an industrial research programme started in 2005.

More than 150 patients have completed part of their rehabilitation with Aramis, and the results obtained were significantly superior to therapy using only conventional rehabilitation methods. The system has an international patent.

Copernicus

For the purely rehabilitation phase at the Institute's laboratories, Copernicus, a system for correct load balancing and early initiation of locomotion, has been implemented.

It is an innovative device, consisting of a mechanical structure and electronic and software components, which enables early and safe locomotion in hemiplegic patients, through exercises for fast load-shifting on the two lower limbs.

The advantages of using such a system lie in the possibility of treating two or more patients at the same time and in the fact that the patient can implement self-management of his or her own treatment with undeniable advantages, including cognitive ones.

The system is in the patent and certification phase.

Intellibed

For the acute phase, in which the patient spends most of his or her hospital stay bedridden, a mechatronic hospital bed for static and dynamic positioning, and passive mobilisation, of all body districts has been built and is being tested.

This fully automated device, called “Intellibed”, is managed by a centralised control that enables all the functions necessary for early rehabilitation that can be delivered 24 hours a day without constant operator intervention.

The therapist must establish, control and modify the daily therapy programme as needed according to the patient’s development. The system is in the patent and certification phase.

DLR (Daily Living Related)

It is a device based on the realisation of different virtual environments in which the subject's movements are detected by an infrared camera, and a processing software converts the gestural recognition of the patient into the activities required to perform the exercises in the different virtual environments, which are displayed on a monitor positioned in front of the patient.

Three virtual environments were designed for the recovery of personal, home and out-of-home autonomy in upper limb rehabilitation treatments. In particular, for the recovery of personal autonomy, the environment that was created consists of a virtual bathroom in which the patient is guided to perform the activity of brushing his teeth. For the recovery of home autonomy the environment that was realised consists of a virtual kitchen in which the patient is guided to the preparation of different dishes.

For the recovery of extra-domestic autonomy, the environment created consists of a virtual supermarket in which the patient is guided to purchase products, starting with consulting a leaflet from which to choose the products they intend to buy, thus making a shopping list, going to the supermarket with a sufficient amount of money, selecting the products from the various supermarket shelves until payment at the till after selecting the money from their wallet and checking any change returned.

Each phase of the rehabilitation exercise is assigned a point so that the final score corresponds to the sum of the correctly completed phases. In addition, at each stage of the exercises, the patient can benefit from visual aids (e.g. virtual illumination of the door that should be opened to take the ingredient needed for the recipe), vocal aids (whereby the next action to be performed is indicated by a voice) or intervention aids for moving on to the next action if it cannot be performed. In all these cases of aid requests, the setting can be changed by the therapist in real time.

Any aids requested are finally stored in the final report of the individual rehabilitation exercise, so that they can also be compared in order to assess progress in the recovery of autonomy.