Increasing Affordable Rehabilitation Robots in Low and Middle Income Countries: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

The World Health Organization in “Rehabilitation 2030, a call for action” describes a mismatch between the global need for rehabilitation, the growing issues seen in the numbers of patients that need care, and the availability of resource. The shortage of health professionals, rehabilitation therapists, nurses and doctors, and persons capable of taking care of the growing numbers of people with disabilities is a major cause of this gap in healthcare. Evidence suggests that rehabilitation robots, which include therapeutic and assistive robots, can support neurorehabilitation of persons with brain injuries and help bridge this care gap. Currently the impact of rehabilitation robotics has not been inclusive and access to the potential benefits of these technologies is unequal. Unfortunately, robot technology-assisted rehabilitation solutions are expensive and as a result they are primarily available in high-income countries, specifically in large hospitals, hospital-affiliated outpatient clinics and in supervised settings. Solutions that are appropriate for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are rare and as a result their availability and impact in these countries is low. Given the potential of these solutions to bridge resource gaps, we must consider innovative ways to design and develop them more affordably, provide more equal access to them for rehab use, and, thereby, extend their global footprint.

Biography

The research of Michelle Johnson is mainly in the area of robot-mediated rehabilitation. She is focused on the investigation and rehabilitation of dysfunction due to aging, neural disease, and neural injury, and particularly interested in 1) exploring the relationships between brain plasticity and behavioral/motor control changes after robot-assisted interventions; 2)quantifying motor impairment and motor control of the upper limb in real world tasks such as drinking; and 3) defining the methods to maintain therapeutic effectiveness while administering local and remote, robot-mediated interventions.

She directs the Rehabilitation Robotics Lab. This is a new Lab within the Department of Physical, Medicine, and Rehabilitation in the Perelman School of Medicine. The Rehabilitation Robotics Lab mission is to use robotics, rehabilitation, and neuroscience techniques to translate research findings into the development of assistive and therapeutic rehabilitation robots capable of functioning in real-world rehabilitation environments.  Our goal is to improve the quality of life and function on activities of daily living (ADLs) of our target population in supervised or under-supervised settings.